Uplifted: The Miracle Workers
by DarkDanny
Summary: Extended Upliftedverse: On the eve of diplomatic reform between the NAU and the Germanic/Quarian Alliance. Two physicians head down to Beaufort, North Carolina to save a young girl at the request of a friend. Faith, on a world where humanity is no longer alone, on a continent that has been isolated from quariankind and its technology for five decades is explored.
1. She's Dead Already, Wilson

**Welcome to Uplfted: The Miracle Workers. an Upliftedverse crossover with House M.D and A walk to Remember. I swear it won't be too terrible.  
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**Chapter One: She's Already Dead, Wilson**

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"It's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and I'm all out of gum."

Leaning back into his chair, Gregory House went to work, helping Duke Nukem kick alien ass and save the woman. Gunning down an Alien trooper on a jetpack he turned and noticed a strange dual rocket launcher. Grabbing it, he jumped off the side of the building and used the weapon known as the Devastator for the first time against a Pig Cop.

"Sweet." House mumbled as he entered the Japanese teahouse and paused briefly to open the blouse of the Japanese mannequin .

The knock on his door was unexpected and took him away from his gaming experience. Frowning, House wondered why the door was being hit. Had he bought a pizza? Was it the neighbour kids wanting to see a cripple? Had he rented a woman of the night and forgot he had done so? Whatever it might have been, it did not detract House from downing his cocktail of Vicodin nor did it move him from his seat in front of his computer. He had alien asses to kick. If it was important, they would ring the buzzer for him.

The buzzer rang.

House paid it no attention as well. There was still a hell of a lot of alien asses to kick. If it was really that important, they would break into his home. Maybe that would warrant his attention.

The sound of his front door opening and closing lightly told him that he was not about to make the six o'clock news top story about a break and enter gone bad, he kept his eyes on the computer screen as the footsteps entered the room that was generating the distinct sound of aliens being gutted. House did not look up.

"Nice to see you haven't been completely avoiding me, Wilson." He greeted James Wilson as he took a seat next to House.

Wilson tried his best not to judge. A really difficult thing to do by all accounts, considering Wilson had decided to play nursemaid to him since the infarction. As of lately however, Wilson had been busy with his new position as Head of Oncology at Princeton-Plainsboro. It was a decent enough gig that had the perks of getting to stare at that Jewish American Princess, Lisa Cuddy's nice ass all day.

"Is there something I can help you with? Or are you looking for my big black book of prostitute numbers?" House inquired his voice low as he executed an alien trooper that clutching his neck and dying. "Because, honestly, that would be an abuse of that bond we have. Using me to get your Willie wet would be an insult to everything we've built... Well perhaps if you have the time though, I'll help you build your own book."

House hid his smirk as the computer screen reflected the frown Wilson was giving, considering how stingy his wife was, he was really doing his friend a favour.

"No, I'll take you up on the offer when I somehow fall to your level." Wilson shot back as he leaned forward "I got this phone call. I was hoping I could talk to you about it."

"_A phone call?_" House repeated, making his voice sound like he had lost fifty IQ points "Phone… call? Is... Is that, that, that fancy box thingamajig you put to your ear and there are buttons with numbers in order?"

Saving the game, House shut off the computer and stood up, his hand clutching his cane tightly as he hobbled towards the kitchen. Behind him was Wilson, inspecting the mess built up in the condo. There were no little remarks offered by him, even though Wilson looked close to blasting him for the sarcasm. Instead, he sat down at the kitchen table and watched House bring a box of cold pepperoni and mushroom pizza over for the two of them.

"I'm sorry I haven't had time to hang out." Wilson returned his voice soft as he decided to help himself to a slice. "Like I said before you decided to remind me of your charming nature. I have this college I met at a conference a few years back; Worth Carter, a cardiologist down in Baltimore."

"Worth..." House repeated as he took a bite. "His parents must have had a real sense of humour."

Rolling his eyes, Wilson dabbed the excess grease of his pizza.

"Like I was saying, Carter is a cardiologist in Baltimore." Wilson repeated. "Last night his son showed up. His girlfriend has late stage acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. He wanted someone to have a second opinion on the matter."

"Ahhh... the old _'girlfriend has cancer'_ routine, priceless." House responded as he wiped his greasy hands on his pant leg. "Sounds like B-version of Love Story already."

Wilson, however did not seem to take the remark lightly nor the reference to that impossibly cheesy movie. Of course he didn't, he had gone into full empathetic mode. It was as though he was this girl's physician already. He had too much of a soft spot for impossible cases. Sure, House himself liked a good puzzle, but this was clear cut terminal cancer. It was _boring_ and he knew the outcome already.

"Be serious." Wilson chastised him. "I talked to Cuddy, I'm taking three weeks off..." He paused, a guilty smile crossing his mouth as he added. "I took a page out of your book, said I would be dealing with a close friend's child... I'm going down there tonight... Beaufort North Carolina. Worth booked a flight."

House arched his brow.

"I'm impressed you deceived her." He said as he stood up to grab the two of them a Heineken "Well have fun down there. You and I both know the girl is already dead. They're just clutching straws over her now."

Handing the Oncologist with a heart three times too big for his own good a beer, he watched Wilson crack open the cap and took a small sip.

"I know it seems like an impossibility that I'll do any good, and to be honest, the only legitimate reason I'm doing this is that I owe Worth a favour." Wilson admitted, setting his drink down. "But let's be honest, cancer science has come a long way over the past six years and there is a huge possibility that treatment could be lagging where she was being tended to. What I might know could be years ahead of her regular physicians. I...I want to try to help."

House sighed, his fingers tapping on the table top.

"Yeah... " He spoke." I already figured that out."

Silence fell. Wilson sat there, he looked nervous, like he wanted to say something else. House only needed one guess to know exactly why Wilson was here. Wilson was a grown man who did not usually run things by him. It meant only one thing. Wilson wanted to drag him along on his little adventure to the South.

"Besides… I was hoping you would come with me." Wilson spoke again, just as House predicted.

Ceasing his tapping, his folded his fingers together and simply stared at the expectant looking Wilson. He did not say a word before Wilson's chair screeched and was pushed back. He soot up and stepped around the table and sat next to the older House.

"Listen, he's organizing her some home care and I might've mentioned him to you." Wilson admitted, looking like he was trying not to grin at House's growing annoyance. "He said he'd pay you for it... Hell, in all likelihood if you are correct, you'll be pretty much set up for a paid vacation down on the beaches, while I do all the work. What do you have to lose?"

House snorted.

"Finding out how Duke Nukem ends for starters." House grumbled, finishing his beer.

Wilson simply sat there, his big stupid puppy dog eyes stared into his. He looked as though he had been told that Santa wasn't real.

"It's North Carolina, not Bermuda." House protested, shaking his head as he turned away. "I don't want to spend it hobbling from the locals for being a no good Yankee who brought science into their town."

Still Wilson did not change the look. It was as though he had been inspired to do something for a dead girl walking. Now he wanted to drag House along for the ride. Well he wasn't going to be a part of an adventure to save a girl from a fate everyone would suffer from eventually. It was ridiculous. Why did Wilson do this to himself? Did he really think there would be a way to stop the inevitable?

Regardless, it did not better. An expression of determination washed away his pleading. Wilson stood up and slid the mostly untouched Dutch beer back to House.

"House, I'm going to go pack." He spoke quietly, his hand reaching into his pocket and pulling out a key, the key to the Condo. "I would like you to at least consider it. The flight leaves 10:45."

Allowing House one last smile, Wilson left, leaving the diagnostician brooding, his hand grabbing Wilson's drink for himself. Wilson's stupid, yet, admirable confident optimism, it was a trait few men kept. He might have thought this was a stupid, pointless venture, but it was admirable.

Not that he would ever admit it.

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"Okay, I've got the address; do you have any furthur details on the patient?"

Sitting in the airport, a cell phone pressed against his ear was James Wilson, his other hand dotting down details. On the line was Worth Carter, who was shuffling through his notes on the other end of the line.

Worth Carter was quite a few years ahead of him, practicing medicine. House and he had met briefly at a seminar in Boston. Wilson kept touch with him, House, of course, did not. He was by all accounts a good cardiologist. However, judging by the way Worth was talking, as though he was guilty for something beyond his control was surprising. He and his son weren't apparently on good terms. To Worth, if buying this girl extra time could help ease the tension; then it would be worth all the wealth he had accumulated from his family's inheritance.

_"Yeah, I called Cynthia about it. Patient's name is Jamie Sullivan, seventeen years old. Father is a Reverend Hegbert Sullivan. Wife died from complications at childbirth."_ Worth responded, sounding exhausted._ "I called him for a few details. He said Jamie went in for what I believe was nonmyeloablative treatment. They couldn't afford the standard treatment and the patient had requested they not do that for her Father's sake. As a result, she stopped responding two years ago... sorry that's all I have." _

Two years. It seemed foolish that Jamie would have denied her Father's desire to seek full and proper treatment for a girl her age instead of opting out for a treatment meant for patients in their late fifties and beyond.

It must have been her background. That faith based background House always found a way to dismiss and antagonize for the illogicalness behind it Wilson could not really consider himself a man of faith, but he was opposite to House, he found himself respecting the beliefs. Sometimes he even envied it. To have that much trust in something they could not prove. It was... remarkable.

"Now once I get to know her case and determine if she needs it and I get her consent, would you help pay for the techniques offered up in PPTH?" Wilson pressed on. "I'll do what I can to alleviate costs, but as it is, I'm already lying to the administrator."

There was a brief pause.

_"Certainly I'll pay for it, hell; you don't have to worry about finding deductions..." _Was Worth's response._ "I love my son, and my son clearly loves this girl. I...owe my son every chance to save her, and if not, pay for end of life care..." _

Carter sounded terrible for saying that. He had admitted he had only seen this Sullivan girl when she was younger and at some school play. Yet, it was like he was only now realizing the mistakes. It was brave that he was doing this. Showing a willingness not to be idle for his son... for this girl he did not know.

Looking up, Wilson froze.

There stood Greg House, one hand clutching a duffel bag, his other, his cane. He was smirking at him, as though bemused about this trip he was apparently about to embark on as well. Wilson could not help, he grinned back, unable to believe it.

"Worth, they're calling up our flight, so I've got to go." Wilson spoke finally, turning away from Greg's eyes burning holes into his. "House just showed up as well. Looks like he's in... I'll tell your son you'll be dropping in soon."

Exchanging goodbyes, Wilson moved his feet as House's bags dropped unceremoniously in front of him and the grizzled diagnostician took a seat at his side. No words were said as he gripped the top of his can with both his hands. He did not even look at Wilson. He simply stared at the terminal they were to be heading to.

Honestly, Wilson had to paint himself surprised at House's appearance. Since the Infarction and Stacy's betrayal of trust, House had become a virtual source of cynicism. Perhaps this was a sign of a change to come. Perhaps things would get better for him.

"Alright then, you've caught my attention." House finally spoke, still staring off. "She's dead already, Wilson. If we can reverse or stop her condition from worsening... then perhaps it would be interesting... Just don't say I never do anything for you."

Before Wilson could reply that technically House was paying him off, the intercom announced their flight. House stood up, grabbing his bag. Wilson watched as his friend winced painfully. Ignoring it, House turned back to face Wilson as he organized his briefcase.

"Just to let you know, either he or you will be paying for the Mercedes I'm renting."

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Jamie loved to nap in the sun.

To her, the warmth of the sunlight felt different then the crackling of a fireplace or a heater. More natural. Like God basking her in a warm, loving glow.

Like she was an angel already...

After the confession, after driving through the night to futilely beg his Father for help, after Jamie approached him once again, reaffirming her love for him and confessed her greatest fear was losing him He was emotionally drained, exhausted. He tried to sleep at home but he couldn't. He just could not bear himself sleeping in and losing any more wasted moments with Jamie. He had wasted... so many moments between kindergarten and now.

Thankfully for him, Jamie was only tired today and she was quite happy lay with him in the one place her Father would allow her to lay with him. Out front, on the poach swing while he tended to his garden and occasionally did edits on Sunday's sermon. It seemed he was warming up to him. He was down to the occasional dirty look.

So here they were, Jamie nestled against him, her eyes slowed, the sound of her breathing made knots in his stomach as his sleep deprived mind made him think of the moment she would stop. When she would cease to be with him...It was driving him to the point of getting physically sick.

Unable to believe what was happening to her, nor did he know what he could possibly do for Jamie, other than being there. Landon did not hear the sound of a car pulling over in front of the house, not the sound of doors opening and closing, then the beep of an alarm system.

"Could you have possibly rented a more ostentatious car?"

That, however, he did hear.

Landon frowned at the statement, but could not will himself to move to investigate the hastily critique. Not with Jamie head buried into his shoulder, still fast asleep, unaware that company was here. Were they here to pay their respects, as though Jamie was gone already? Thought a thought forced Landon to force the silent rage swelling in his chest.

"The townies need to fear and respect us." A second voice called out. His voice was much rougher then the first, his tone richly flavoured with sarcasm, thick and unimpressed with where he was.

"Showing off your wealth is the surest sign to narcissism. Now can I help you gentlemen?"

Deciding he needed to see for himself, he extremely carefully untangled himself from Jamie, faintly smiling as he heard Jamie whimper a sleepy protest to the movement. Pressing a kiss on her forehead as he rested her head on an improvised pillow made from his jacket, Landon stood up. The first thing he noticed was the car. A possibly 1996 Mercedes E-Class, a real beauty of a car Landon had to admit.

Two men stood there in front of the car. The first one was a stocky man, relatively young, wearing a dress shirt and pants, his jacket on his arms; his eyes were wide and caring as he looked between Hegbert and him. The one that caught his eyes was the tall one who was dressed like he did before he met Jamie. Designer jeans, a rumpled Clash shirt that he wore under a grey straight armed jacket, in his hand he clutched the top of a cane tightly.

Judging from the trademark death glare the Reverend was producing had been directed towards the taller of the two; Landon could only surmise that he had been the source of the remark that angered Jamie's Dad.

"A word of advice? Ignore my friend from now on for everyone's sake." The kind eyed man spoke as he gestured back to the taller cane wielding man. "My name is James Wilson; I'm head of the Oncology department at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, up in Princeton New Jersey. From what I'm told you must be Mr. Hegbert Sullivan."

Landon blinked. He was an oncologist? This... this had to be a dream, a dream caused through hallucinations from his tired and numbed mind. Blinking and rubbing his eyes, the two men remained standing there. Pulling off his gardening gloves, Mister Sullivan offered his hand, which the Doctor named Wilson took.

"Reverend." Hegbert corrected the Doctor. "A pleasure to meet you, you have come a long way, with all things considered. I suppose you have a good reason to drive all this way, being an oncologist and all..."

Wilson nodded, glancing to his left, to where his companion stood, he gestured to him.

"Doctor Gregory House, a world class diagnostician. He's currently in between-"

The one known as House did not shake hands with Hegbert, who stared at the cane wielding man.

"In between workplaces, but don't worry your head about it." The Doctor called House replied dryly as he continued for Wilson. "Unlike being a man of the cloth, I can't just pick up a book and say I'm a Doctor. Kind of need to have proof that I can do my job."

Giving House one last sharp look at the blatant mocking of his faith, The Reverend shook his head, sighing in reluctantly, he added, "Lord protect any patient that falls in your hands."

Trying to keep the peace, Wilson stepped forward in front of House.

"That is why we're here... to help Jamie." Wilson spoke tersely as he looked past the Reverend and instead, for the first time, he focused on the seventeen year old, adding. "You must be Landon Carter?"

Swallowing the knot in his throat, built up by knowing that his words had worked, his Father had shown he had listened and perhaps... perhaps even cared about his son's happiness, all Landon could do at first was to simply nod.

"Yes..." He finally managed to get out. "It's nice to meet you, sir."

James Wilson returned the nod.

"Likewise, I'm a friend of your Father, Landon." Wilson informed him, smiling carefully. Glancing back to the older man, he added. "Worth asked me to give a second opinion for daughter, Reverend Sullivan."

As welcoming as he might have been, it was clear to everyone that Reverend Sullivan was conflicted about their sudden. Glancing back to Jamie, Landon could see Jamie still curled up on the poach swing.

"I spoke to Mr. Carter about Jamie on the telephone last night." Jamie's father admitted aloud to Wilson, to the uninterested House and, of course, Landon himself. "We have spent years going to Doctors. The same answers came back. According to them, there simply are no more options."

"There are always options, you can't give up until it's truly too late." Doctor Wilson carefully corrected the Reverend; "leukemia, especially in youths is a running battle that we're making major strides in every time a study is completed. Judging from the case file... I don't want to offend but your oncologist in charge of the case sounds like he's... woefully out of date and your daughter's reluctance to over burden you with bills."

Wilson paused, smiling as he gestured to the young man.

"Well that's no longer the excuse..." Wilson stated. "It's all being paid for, courtesy of Doctor Carter."

Landon went red in the face as he ducked his head away from being the focal point of Reverend Sullivan, who had turned back, his expression one of shock and humble appreciation for what this Wilson was saying. He could not believe that this was happening. He… he had thought his Father wasn't going to help, that he would yet again ignore his pleas. But here stood his Father's reply. It was a chance, a chance to save Jamie's future.

They were two miracle workers, about to embark on a creation of a miracle.

"Running to your Daddy did the trick, Calrissian." Wilson's companion muttered; snapping Landon's head back up. "You're lucky... Wilson just can't say no to anything... Good morning Alley."

Confused by the usage of Ally, Landon turned back and saw that Jamie was standing next him, her hand curling into his as they stood there together. She smiled weakly to him and focused back on the cane clutching Doctor piercing her eyes. It looked as though he had read each and every moment of Jamie's short moment and was not impressed with what he saw.

Or worse yet, he had come to a conclusion that Jamie was beyond his help.

"It's Jamie." She spoke softly, correcting him.

The disgruntled physician raised his brow.

"Yeah? Well, bangs were so 1992." House taunted the Jamie. Ignoring the flaring of anger from Landon, he turned away and glanced to his companion, adding. "I'm taking the car and finding a hotel... Reverend, there would not be any chance that there are any local girls for hire who confessed to you? If so I wouldn't say no to a visit."

Looking to Jamie, she appeared unfazed by his reaction, although her free hand did touch her hair self-consciously. Smiling reassuringly, he turned to the tall man hobble off to the grey Mercedes.

They waited until he was gone before the Reverend turned back to Wilson, who stood there, resigned that he was a friend to a man that would insult a boy, a deathly ill girl and a Reverend in a span of about ten minutes. Reverend Sullivan looked as though he was sucking on a lemon as he watched the car pull off the curve and head into town.

"Doctor Wilson." Reverend Sullivan said. "I can assure you that I hold both you and your friend's presence here to save my Jamie with great esteem, but please tell me that I won't see much of _him_ from now on."

Rubbing his neck, Wilson stepped forward, trying to laugh it off.

"I wouldn't worry, sir. He tends to prefer behind the scenes." Wilson said as Reverend Sullivan ushered him towards his home. "He's a jerk, I would use stronger language to describe him, but I don't think it would be welcomed. I won't try to justify his attitude, but if there was one Doctor working on you it's him. Talent sometimes blots out good manners."

Though it did not bring peace to the Reverend, he would simply have to live with it. The two men stepped up the steps, passing Jamie and Landon as they stood together. He Allowed Landon a look that clearly shined with an expression of gratitude. Not so much completely directed to him, but for his Father's willingness to help his child. He wasn't alone… Landon could not help but feel the resentment held for him wash away.

With a quick kiss open his daughter's cheek, Wilson and Jamie's father left, leaving the two teenagers alone on the front steps of the home. The moment the door closed, Landon found Jamie wrapping her arms around him. She seemed almost lost at the strange turn of events.

"Landon... I... I don't know." Jamie murmured into his chest. "Every test..."

There was no hurt in her voice. She simply sounded drained, as though she had heard this all before. In all likelihood she was right. It had been bears of doctor visits and now, having spent years living with the unbearable realization that her time on the Earth was drawing near. Now to have these two men, brought here on his Father's request, it seemed… like fate.

His hand rubbing up and down her spine, only covered by a thin layer of cloth, he could feel her shiver unconsciously against him. It was one of those touches that got a rise out of her. It was always amusing to see how she reacted. This time however, she didn't. She simply relaxed into the nearly intimate touches.

"I don't know much in the way of Scripture..." Landon admitted, hand still pressed into her spine as he added, "but if you have faith in a higher power... Have faith in Men, right?"

"You have faith in something." She whispered her eyes bright, hopeful that this was indeed the truth. Landon could not help it, he smiled and slowly nodded.

"Yes... for the first time, I believe that this might be it... the miracle..." Landon murmured softly as he felt Jamie's fingers graze his cheek. Pulling back slightly to look at Jamie properly, he tried to smile confidently, adding, "Don't you believe it?"

Her eyes still downcast at his chest, Jamie pulled her head up to look him in his eyes; hers were misty as she slowly nodded.

"I do Landon... I really do Landon..." She whispered back, pulling back from him, her hands remaining inside of his. "If they... if they extend my time with you, you have no idea how much I want this."

Leaning in, their mouths met. For only a moment, they forgot about terrible burden she had. It was a terrible burden that he wanted to bare as well.

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**I hope this was decent. **

**So as I said before Uplifted fans there are reasons why I am writing this. These are the reasons for taking this on.**

**1/ I need to practice a male "bromance". So far I have been pretty devoted to opposite genders and have left male side characters to the side lines. I so far I have only written one decent male friendship and that one is more of a father son thing. This will hopefully help.**

**2/ I need to practice medical jargon for Adam Ackerson and the other scientists involved in next series. A large chunk of the next series being devoted to science, medicine and the ethical tightrope innovators have to walk. So hey, why not use a couple Doctors who are essentially Sherlock and Holmes.**

**3/ I need to write someone with a terminal illness. This one will have a happier ending, but in the Uplifted: Integration, not so much.**

**4/ I need to write a person of faith who isn't a strawman. Most if not all character I have written are either Atheists, Agnostics or privately religious. With Jamie being a daughter of a Reverend, and a flat out reverend in it, I can't hide it. This goes towards the science versus religion in the next 1998-2012 series.**

**5/ it's an excuse to write fluff.  
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	2. You Can't Cure Death, John Hoch

**Had a lot of inspiration to do this, honestly a good chunk of my creativity has been devoted to setting up John Hoch. It's good I now have an outlet to focus... maybe ten percent of him on.**

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**Chapter Two: You Can't Cure Death, John Hoch**

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_"You know... Why didn't we ever get together? Could you imagine our children? Your brains, my charm, my charisma, my good looks, my wealth… Our child could rule the Earth from behind the scenes."_

_The woman behind the microscope did not look at the personal question. So instead John took a seat in the clean room, the two of them now into hour ten of their laboratory research of the day. They would break soon, time to feed her, give her, her intake of vitamins and painkillers. She was already looking tender and was moving slow. He was easily one of the wealthiest men on the planet, who only needed to walk about two hundred meters to the nearest elevator and head down to the medical centre to find her an improved upon Riluzole he had developed for the brief time she allowed medication for her pregnancy. _

_It wasn't a cure, but it worked well enough that the moment she had Amala, she got off the medication in fear of further damaging her research into the natural progression._

_"Three reasons, John." Was her near robotic response to her friend, "First, you're describing our hypothetical child as the Anti-Christ. Second, if your Father ever found out you were breeding with a half breed; he would sterilize the two of us." _

_John could only grin despite himself._

_"He's not that bad." John returned, grabbing a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. "He probably hates the Scottish in you more than the Indian…. Am I going to know the third?"_

_Looking up from her neuron cultures, biopsied from herself a month ago, Alexandria Ackerson pulled off her mask and glanced up to meet John in the eye, her light brown skin paled, her tired expression both distant and amused by John's excuse for his card carrying Ex-Nazi father. The smile vanished off her gaunt face as she noticed the way he looked at her. His tone was light, but the way he looked at her. It was a man dead serious and searching for the answer. _

_"You scare me."_

A hand touching against his shoulder brought John Hoch back to reality. He looked at the source and found it had been his sister, Haeva, smiling nervously at him. Offering her a half-hearted smile in return, John turned back to face the Priest who was presiding over the funeral precession, his expression soft and sympathetic as it fell to the three people sitting on two seats. Adam Ackerson, clutching Amala, Alexandria's daughter tightly in his arms, almost worried she would leave him as well.

Near to him was a quiet old man, his eyes flickering up to stare down the other old man at standing silently with his wife, paying no attention to it. The old man was his Father, Joachim. They did not know each other, but Bernard was Scottish, whose allegiance was to Great Britain, while Joachim was German. That was all that was needed for hatred to grow.

_"As we gather to commend our sister, Alexandria Amala Ackerson to God, our Father and to commit her body to the earth, let us express in prayer, our common faith in the resurrection. As Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, we too are called to follow him through death to the glory where God will be all in all."_

She was finally at peace. The last thing Alexandria would have wanted to here was some whacko theologian committed her to her grave she did not want.

No, what she wanted to be shot towards her favourite star, Proxima Centauri. However it was not to be, thanks to her Father, Captain Bernard McKellan, retired officer, who served in the 14th Army under General Slim, rotting away in the Burma Campaign for almost a decade, it left him fiercely Catholic and demanding his daughter be buried on Earth, like a McKellan ought to be.

Adam, Alexandria's husband, continued to stare at the coffin, clearly lost in grief was inclined to agree with his Father-in-Law. It wasn't so much of disagreement with him, it was practical reasons. Somewhere he could find her. Somewhere for Alexandria's legacy could find her. In her final two years, she all but stopped seeing Adam, her obsession with finding a cure, to experiment on herself for the sake of her daughter, her goal.

He wondered if Alexandria had told him that was her reason for choosing to die, rather than fight to live.

Though Adam was cut from her, Hoch was there. For those two years he was there, taking care of her, watching as she rotted away before him. Some would describe ALS as turning loved ones to stone. Not John, he knew better, it rotted away her neurons. He watched as she rotted away physically, emotionally. The bad days he had to listen to her scream for him to kill her, in her panic. Then there were the good days when they reminisced about times that were gone forever, every day worse than the next, every day more desperate.

And now she was gone. His best friend was gone.

Hands in his pockets, John Hoch fumbled with his golden cigarette case, but allowed it to slip from out of his grasp. She would be proud of him. He hadn't smoked in three days.

He could not believe this had happened. Twenty five years of friendship, Medical school, quarian institutes and years spent breaking the cancer gene, developing augmentation technology for healthcare, civilian and military applications. All of it came crashing down around him when she told him that ALS was eating her alive.

He could have saved her. He could have done so much more for her. But it was too late. She was gone and she would never be back.

_"You can't cure death, John. No matter how much money you can throw at it."_

This had grown to be her motto in her twilight months. Well. He would prove her wrong.

"We read in sacred Scripture: Matthew 25:34: Come, you who are blessed by my Father, says the Lord, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

He should have fought her on this. He should have forced that stubborn woman into taking treatments. They could have tracked the disease in any of the other hundreds of thousands of victims. She could have lived for a good decade maybe longer as they developed the treatments as they went along.

He should have spent less time on perfecting limb technology and organ replacement, the cancer therapies developed in the mid to late eighties was plagued by years of red tape offered up by North American drug companies that lobbied successfully that research from Europe could potentially be dangerous, his therapy used as a weapon of dependence. They played on the Anti-German fears of general North American public during the last decade.

He should have ended that fight the moment it started, withdrew and allowed those backwards fuckers die from the cancer deaths that were rising constantly over there, and instead focused on motor neuron diseases, the first stepping stone to brain disease. Alexandria would have still been alive had he explored that area without needing her admitting she was sick as a motivator.

_"Lord Jesus Christ, by your own three days in the tomb, you hallowed the graves of all who believe in you and so made the grave a sign of hope that promises resurrection even as it claims our mortal bodies. Grant that our sister may sleep here in peace until you awaken her to glory, for you are the resurrection and the life. Then she will see you face to face and in your light will see light and know the splendour of God, for you live and reign for ever and ever..."_

_"Amen."_ Everyone in the gathering but John solemnly murmured back.

_"Before we go our separate ways, let us take leave of our sister, Alexandria. May our farewell express our affection for her; may it ease our sadness and strengthen our hope. One day we shall joyfully greet her again when the love of Christ, which conquers all things, destroys even death itself."_

Officially done with this death worshipping, John backed out of the crowd and turned, ignoring the glances offered by the bereaving gathering, Father turned and looked as though he was going to stop him, but he didn't. Glad his Father did not try anything, he left, not noticing that a short quarian woman was walking swiftly to catch him.

"John?"

Pulling on his Aviators, and reaching for his cigarettes, John turned and offered a thin smile for Galina Hoch, his baby sister as she joined him exiting the cemetery. Her expression was one of both sympathy for her brother and curiosity as to what her brother and employer was doing. As she reached his side, he reached out and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

Well, what John needed to do was something, anything. He made his first billion in Daedalus by the time he was twenty nine. He was influential beyond most other men on this little planet. He had the power to shape the future in any way he wished. To feel this powerless… it felt so wrong to him.

He needed to keep himself busy. That was what he needed now. A nice distraction from all of this inevitable mess he found himself in. He needed to find a way to forget that there was now a gaping hole in his everyday life.

"I want you to get in touch with Frankie." John issued to her. "Tell her all research and funding into the Leda Project is diverted to the Alexandria Project, anything occurring in the news today?"

Scanning through her omni-tool, Galina looked back up, tucking her silver hair, a rare quarian trait that had apparently skipped several generations in the Jarva line. It didn't make her prematurely old; she just looked, different, considering that ninety percent odd of quarians had dark hair.

"The Germanic/Quarian delegation has arrived in Washington D.C for the negotiations."

Ah yes, the potential end of the cold war, at least between the North American Union. Yes, he could help there. Since the collapse of the Fascist Union of Nations the NAU was a blooming superpower that knew it would need to alleviate the fears involving the quarians and the German Reich. There was much to be offered with the new friendship being played around with.

Perhaps he could help with the efforts. He could throw together a conference over there. Perhaps even take another stab at bringing North America out of the medical dark ages even. If he could convince them then he would have a new source of capital, capital well spent into further research. He would not grovel for their business like last time. He wasn't small time now. He would simply remind them of all the cancer and AIDS deaths they could have prevented had they taken him up on his work.

"Good, I want my VTOL fuelled and Isabella ready to fly to Washington inside the hour." He spoke as he opened the limousine's door for her. "Are you up for a trip, sister?"

Galina slightly frowned as she stepped into the car. John could not blame her for not appearing too enthusiastic with it. If being a German national in North America was tough, it was ten times worse to be a Quarian-German.

**...**

* * *

**...**

Sitting on the hood of his car, Worth Carter stared at the church.

The church had let out about fifteen or so minutes ago by his last glance at his watch; the parishioners socialized briefly amongst one another and headed home. Though they might have been gone there was still a familiar old wooden panelled Jeep Grand Cherokee sat parked outside, one he had bought about half a decade ago for his ex.

Adjusting his tie and trying to ignore the growing Northern Carolina humidity, he exhaled, sipping from his bottle of water and threw it back onto the driver's seat. Of course they would be the last ones to leave. Landon had found himself dating's a minister's daughter, a feat that Worth found himself very impressed by. He could not imagine it would be easy to date a girl who had a strict disciple of Christ as a Father.

He wondered if he could be here. He probably should have gone and aided Wilson and House in setting up the Sullivan girl's room. He might have been paying for all of this, but it would not hurt to have an extra hand on site. HE figured he would stick around, see if he could help medically. He was a cardiologist, but he certainly could do the day to day management while Wilson and House had free time to investigate her examinations and look into treatment options.

He might as well, with his second wife, Amanda's permission granted. It would give him time to get to know everything and everyone he walked away from when his marriage fell apart. Though Cynthia had managed to forgive him, Landon and he had much to work on. With any luck, his Mother and his girlfriend would find it in their hearts to press him harder to work this out.

The doors to the church opened at long last. Stepping out first was Cynthia. Her back was turned as she focused on a conversation with the Reverend. Ignoring the slight pang in his gut from a wife he should not have left, he turned and saw that his son was trailing behind the older two, his hand clutching the reverends daughter. He was smiling but clearly it was one forced as he tried to ignore the impending death sentence he was now helpless to do anything about for this young woman, smiling much more vibrantly.

For a girl with late stage leukaemia, she certainly looked healthy, if a tad bit underweight. Underweight, but she wasn't a chemotherapy zombie that many in their final months became, having pumped so much of that modified mustard gas poison into their veins as though it was napalm against the Vietcong. Of course she had allowed herself to listen to doctors who wanted to funnel someone of lower middle class through the system. It did not help that her faith told her that this had been ordained by the Lord and so it helped accept her fate so willingly.

Fixing his hair and pushing himself off the hood of his car. Slowly he wandered their way. His hands in his dress pants pocket as he tried to push away the nervous sensation that was eating away at the gut of his stomach. Thankfully he was spared. The girl, Jamie was the first to look. She froze, stopping Landon, who turned his head away from her and found himself looking into his Father's eyes.

Nervously shuffling as the domino effect occurred. Mr. Sullivan and Cynthia took notice as well.

"Hello Cynthia." Worth greeted his surprised family. "Hello son."

There was no reaction at first. Cynthia and he had been fine for some time now. Landon on the other hand stood there frozen next to his girlfriend, Jamie, who looked pleased to see that this was happening.

Suddenly he broke down; dropping Jamie's hand from his he suddenly rushed his Father, wrapping him into a largest hug Worth had experienced from his son. The first hug he had received from his son since Landon had been knee, maybe thigh high

He missed this, but still he wished this was under better circumstances. Especially as he felt Landon's tears touch against his dress shirt.

"Thank you..." He sobbed, muffled into him. "I- I'm sorry. God, Dad, I've been such an asshole to you."

The profanity made Reverend Sullivan clear his throat. Landon stiffened in his arms. Worth could not help but smirk as he looked up to thank the Reverend for keeping a tight lease on Landon for the past little while, whether the Father and Man of God wanted the responsibility or not.

"Don't even worry about it." Worth told his son quietly as he felt his son's face move up and down into his chest. "Most of what you thought about me was right. I should have tried... so much harder than I did... but just because I did not try, doesn't mean I ever loved you, or that I wouldn't help you when you needed it..."

He trailed off allowing his boy to pull back slightly. He was still trying not to show anything in front of Jamie and her Father. Slowly, Worth allowed a smile to spread across his face.

"You didn't have to run away, you know." Worth said, trying not to sound too reproachful. Listening to Landon abruptly laugh he added. "We could have sat down and figured this all out. You wouldn't have been surprised I sent help along."

Chuckling now, Landon let go of his Father, his hand rubbing his neck as he glanced back to the brunette smiling to him encouraging.

"Wilson seems alright..." He muttered lowly, as though he didn't want the Sullivan's to hear. "House... all he could do was insult the Reverend."

Worth, just like his son, rubbed his neck as he realized the kind of man he had unleashed on this small town. Yeah, he was warned that House didn't understand the concept of boundaries particularly well.

"Yeah... From everything I heard from Wilson over the years, it certainly seems like his M.O." Worth explained to his boy. "Diagnosticians in general are rather... eccentric."

Smiling to his son, he turned and nodded respectfully to the man of the cloth and his child.

"Hello Reverend and you must be Jamie."

As Jamie Sullivan stepped forward, Worth could immediately see that she was sicker than his impression at a distance had gave him. Already he could see her eyes were dark, bruising that was hidden underneath a light layer of touch up. Yes, she was indeed sick.

"Thank you for doing this." Jamie spoke, her thin lips, a slight tired look on her expression. I... I had accepted this, leaving everything... everyone. For two years I was at peace..." She paused, exhaling as looked away, looking to Landon. Softly, she added. "Then Landon came along. He's rough, doesn't mind defending my honour... but, I hope you're proud of him. You raised him well."

Surprised at her well articulate raise, Worth flashed his eyes briefly over her shoulder to Landon, who stood next to the gently smiling Cynthia, all Worth could do was shake his head at the generous claim offered by the much too polite young lady..

"All the good you see in Landon, That's all to Cynthia's credit, Jamie." He returned, gesturing to the mother of his child. "I'm just hoping I can have a turn in the near future… Following in your Father's footsteps and all."

Watching Landon blush slightly as Worth admitted he knew the secret he had; Jamie shook her head, her bangs moving back and forth as she shook, smiling sweetly.

"No, I think Landon has more in you then you feel right to admit to."

Taking a step back, Jamie turned to Landon and took his hand. The two of them wandered off down the sidewalk, for a nice walk home, the Reverend several feet behind the two of them. With the three of them gone. It left Worth alone with a woman he once loved. In many ways still loved. Slowly, he turned back to face the mother of his son.

Much to his bewildered surprise, she was actually smiling for him.

"That was surprisingly sweet of you, Worth." She complimented. "I spoke to the Reverend, I'm going to whip something up at home and come over tonight. I hope you and your friends will not leave by then."

Worth nodded.

"I'll see what I can do."

Smiling faintly, Cynthia gestured off to Landon and Jamie, arm and arm as Landon escorted her back to her home. A silly smile splashed across Cynthia's face, in her eyes tears threatening to fall.

"Those two look so good together..." She whispered. "Jamie... she's done wonders to him. I... I wish that things for her could be better." Pausing to gather herself, she turned back to her ex-husband, smiling through the tears as her hands clutched his forearms, she added. "Worth, thank you for this... You've pretty much made yourself a king around these parts again..."

Together the two of them laughed at her observation.

"Was I ever not?" Worth wondered aloud, "This was my old stomping grounds, remember."

Rolling her eyes, Cynthia Carter leaned forward and pressed her lips against Worth's cheeks. Smiling still, she wandered off towards the Jeep waiting her, leaving Worth lost in the memories of the old day.

**...**

* * *

**...**

"This is Sierra Seven Juliet out of Dresden, Greater German Reich, carrying Daedalus Industries VIP to the Washington Summit. Requesting landing at IAD. Reaching landfall in four minutes. Confirm position, over."

_"Position confirmed Sierra Seven Juliet. Permission denied for Dulles International, there is no record of your flight identification allowed in civilian and military airspace of the United States of America and elsewhere across the union. Recommend you divert to international fuelling stations on neutral Greenland and return to your point of origin, over and out."_

Groaning at her former countrymen's stubborn refusal to allow her clearance, Pilot Isabella Ochoa pulled back on the throttle of the ME-683c Hawk, a civilian variant of the Heer gunship Vertical Take-off and Landing aircraft John Hoch had picked her up for twenty seventh birthday two years ago.

Although it might have been technically company property, she all but owned the sleek civilian transport, which, in an hour of dedication could be turned into a gunship that severely outclassed the Apache's her friends flew before she left the North American Union in disgust. She spent four years in an F/A-18, made it to Captain before being blacklisted during President Regan administration because a relative she had back in Spain was high up in the Spanish Fascist government.

To think that was a life she had wanted. Working high level corporate security -essentially she was John's bodyguard and piloting for him had by far more perks then public service. A six figure salary, a month off paid vacation time to head back to Santa Clara every year, where she left her family. There was less bureaucracy and having an employer such as him was always interesting in some way or another.

Easing up on the stick as she throttled down, she unhitched her harness and activated the Virtual Intelligence Auto Pilot. Like the last hundred or so flight time and simulations. Handing controls to a machine intelligence made her uneasy. Opening the sliding downs to the passenger compartment, she found John Hoch opening a small bag of cocaine and Miss Galina Hoch on her omni-tool talking to Daedalus headquarters.

"How do you want to approach this, sir?" Isabella inquired, watching her employer chop up a line.

Snorting the powder, John wiped nose and rested his head back into the seat, ignoring Galina's eyes watching him carefully. He lolled his heads to the side as he allowed the illegal stimulate to kick in.

"They're bluffing." He muttered as he tucked the bag back into his jacket. "Do like I always do, take the bird and land her at 2300 M Street Northwest. There ought to be a VTOL or a helipad on the German embassy. Last time I checked it was German soil, they can't touch us there."

Feeling suddenly stupid that a coked up man knew what do while she was privately making plans to divert to Greenland, Isabella said. "Mireda...Right… sorry sir."

John waved it off with a false smile and a hand gesture. He sniffed suddenly, a delayed reaction to the cocaine now flowing through his respiratory system. Rubbing his brow, a sly grin crossed his as he activated his omni-tool.

"Don't worry; I imagine an expatriate must have forgotten that."

The VTOL Passenger bay's speakers erupted into the blaring of a beat that sounded not much different than a machine firing in bursts combined with a drum. Isabella winced and tried to ignore the glaring electronic rock, John would, when sober, keep to himself. Not today it seemed, as he rolled his head back onto the edge of the headrest, his head banging in time with the beat.

Clearing her throat, Isabella bit the bullet. Doctor Alexandria Latha was her friend as well.

"If you don't mind me saying, I don't think cocaine is going to help you forget today."

John didn't look his head still moving in time.

"No, it sure as hell won't..." John agreed with her, his voice loud as he called out over the surround sound. "But it sure will take my mind off letting her rot like that!"

_"I saw a saviour, a saviour come my way..."_

Wrinkling her nose at John's choice of music and sharing looks with Galina, who smiled, understanding Both Isabella's worry and annoyance, the ex-fighter pilot closed the sliding cockpit doors, leaving the siblings alone as she went to set course for the embassy.

**...**

* * *

**...**

**Kind of moody, but hey, as you'll see it's justified.**

**Sometimes I love the little things that this future presents. Notably, the ancient city of Dresden isn't turned into a smouldering pile of ashes which by all accounts was an act of terror bombing meant to frightening the Russians.**

**New Original Characters**

**Captain Bernard Mckellan: Alexandria's Father. There will be a very good chance that I will be doing one or more scenes written in Burma. Meaning, of course, the introduction of the Imperial Japanese Army. I'm pressed for time so I will not likely go into detail about the Japanese. It will kind of be like the Christian Bohr Tatiyana story, only more of a cliché.**

**Galina Hoch: The youngest quarian daughter of the Hoch family, she's opposite to her socialite sister and has chosen to dedicate her professional life to helping John's work. She will be significantly different then the Hoch Family. So much so that she is really the only member of the family who is genuinely sweet and idealistic.**

**Isabella Ochoa -Pilot and personal guard to John Hoch. Everyone suspects he's guarded by a huge security force, but said security is dedicated to keeping his family and his company safe. After sending five years in training and internal augmentations, Isabella is John's Kai Leng.**

**Don't feel bad if you're imagining Michelle Rodriguez. So am I. Chick is a beasts.**

**Song at the end is called Machine Gun -Portishead. I am weary about using songs, but music in this area might be touched upon, as had classical music was briefly touched on in Uplifted trilogy.**

**This story may get longer, depending on the reception. So far it's modestly decent Not Uplifted decent, but I would hope people will be reading this. A lot of stuff explored in this story becomes key to the next three stories. Then, once I have my Tali/John on the way, I might write potential series I set in 2019- 2037. That series, however, will have to be worked on quite a lot. **

**Thanks for reading!**

**DarkDanny**


	3. The World Isn't Fair, Kid

**Sorry this took so long. It was a combination of writing casually and the computer that I have used to write 1.1 million words has conked out on me. I have been borrowing a roommate's machine and I have a new computer on the way. **

**….**

* * *

**….**

**Chapter Three: The World isn't Fair, Kid.**

**…**

_"It looks wonderful, it smells delicious, it's just that I'm just not hungry."_

_Looking up from his own bowl light pheasant consommé, John gave Alexandria a weary stare as she held her eyes on what was essentially glorified broth, her spoon making waves as she ran it in a slow circle. . She didn't seem to be having an episode. Perhaps she was simply itching to get back to the lab and finish her cultures. Or perhaps it was anyone of the numerous projects she had started. _

_Not that she was allowed to do so tonight. Her lab time was now officially cut from eighteen to fourteen hours a day. John's decision was made for him when he caught her in a heated argument with Doctor Fassbender, head researcher in Ocular augmentation, and a qualified ocular surgeon. She had wanted to sign up for a Parvocellular extraction to study the decaying effects the disease had on vision. _

_She had told John that she was losing depth perception. He told her that was what happened when you did not sleep and spent most of the week looking through a manual microscope rather than use the equipment he provided her. To say it brought great embarrassment that she was trying to order an eye scrapping because of a symptom of overexertion would have made John laugh if she hadn't broke down and cried for several long hours._

_"That's cute. You actually think that you have a choice in the matter." He spoke, sipping his broth, purposely not noticing her eyes narrow at him. "Eat or I'll reduce lab time to eight. You know I will do it."_

_Setting down his spoon, he stood up from his seat. He glance away from Alexandria and over to the third person sitting at the dining table, who had not said a word since she sat down. Isabella Ochoa. A friend of Alexandria, Latha… Ackerson had personally recommended the woman as a guard. In a matter of a few years, she had jumped all the way up to head of his security detail for both him and his new private empire._

_"Please could you eat, Alexandria?" Isabella requesting, smiling encouragingly to her friend, "It would make me feel better. It's not like the boss made it personally."_

_Ignoring the jibe offered up by Isabella, John closed the drawer behind him and headed back to the table._

_"Well in that case..." The Englishwoman started to joke, until she hissed as an auto-injector in John's hand plunged into her arm. Looking up furiously, she added. "What in the hell was that for!"_

_John quirked his lips as he handed Alexandria a napkin to stop a bleed from the injection site._

_"Concentrated Tetrahyrdrocannabinol, I've been experimenting with it since '88." John explained as he cleaned the injector and reloaded it. "I initially designed it to combat the effects of weight loss during cancer and AIDS treatment in North America. It would have been sort of a gateway to warm those people up to modern medicine. No luck though, apparently they think it wise to wage a war on a plant." _

_Opening his cigarette case, John glanced up and met Alexandria's disapproving stare. He sighed and tucked them away, his mouth forming a half smile._

_"Well for now, the applications could be used as a part of Bulimia and Anorexia therapy." He tacked on. I'm toying with whether or not to lessen the psychotropic effects."_

_Gesturing the injector to Isabella, the woman curved her mouth only slightly and nodded. She hissed as the injector plunged into her arm, her free hand reaching up to rub the tender flesh. Biting her lip as she pushed her dark locks from out of her field of vision, Isabella leaned back into her seat, her mouth forming a bright smile, as if the injection had already taken effect._

_"So you took the good part of Marijuana and took out the smoking or the cooking?" The bodyguard spoke, humoured by the prospect, glancing to Alexandria, she added, "Sign Hoch up for a Nobel Prize, Doctor Ackerson. He earned it," _

_John chuckled lightly at the remark offered by his pilot bodyguard and confidant all rolled into one, he injected a dose into himself and then tucked the auto injector away into the drawer. John turned back and found Alexandria watching him, her arms crossed. She looked at him oddly, like he had done something wrong. Exhaling, Alexandria leaned back into her seat, her arms uncrossing as her fingers laced together._

_"THC also suppresses muscle spasms brought on by neuron disease, Bella." She spoke softly for Ochoa's benefit. "John Hoch, you're as clear as day, It's somewhat embarrassing."_

_The scientist and the Industrialist stared at each other, neither of them speaking. The state left the pilot with the realization that she was extremely out of place at the moment. Gathering her dishes and blinking as the THC was officially taking its hold, she stood up. The woman knew better than to get involved with a potential fight between the two old friends. Hoch could not blame her, though they might have been friends, Alexandria and he had come from vastly different families, which then translated into furious fights that lasted hours and would often occur in front of the staff._

_"I'm going to go." She excused herself, choosing not to look either of them in the eye. "I have half a pound of Columbian green in a sock drawer that I haven't touched in some time... You're welcomed to join me, boss, Doctor Ackerson... you know, whenever."_

_John broke his glance briefly to nod his head. He turned back to Alexandria, who had broken her dulled gaze to look down at the soup bowl. Her spoon dipped in as she took her first taste of the chilling thin broth. Exhaling, John wandered over to the nearest seat next to her and slumped into the seat, his fingers folding together as he directed his gaze on them._

_The top of his hands were suddenly gripped by caramel toned hands, hands that were withered more than they should have been at her age. Alexandria looked up as John squeezed her fingertips, she smiled weakly to him. That crooked smile she would get when she found herself in an awkward place. Well, it was somewhat awkward since his question a few days ago since he asked her a rather personal question. Perhaps his mother was right; perhaps he ran his mouth without thinking. _

_Even if that was the case, John still felt he had that undeniable right, especially with Alexandria being the focal point of his infinite curiosity. He needed to know everything about her, in the off chance that they failed to find a way to save her. Yes, he would save her; he would save her then the others. No matter how badly his logical mind screamed at his irrational heart that he would not save her. She was setting herself up as a sacrifice for the sake of others. She had accepted her fate, so why couldn't he?_

_No, here he sat, his hands being held by a woman who, after spending a good hundred hours a week in a lab. She was probably worn out, her bones aching as her nervous system was collapsing with every second. It was probably like pins and needles do this simple act._

_"So... why do I scare you?" John finally found his voice, his head tilting to finally look the woman properly._

_Alexandria did not reply at first, she simply held her eyes on the hand she was gripping. She seemed to have been trying to focus on her breathing, that or she had a headache coming on. Whatever it was caused the man to frown slightly._

_"There was a time when I wasn't scared of you, John. Truth is I fancied you quite a bit." Alexandria admitted, her eyes looking up towards him finally. "Then you came home from Spain in '78. You spent what? Three… four years training under that complete lunatic Nazi, Skorzeny? Another two years in Cambodia and Vietnam doing God knows what to the locals..."_

_John blinked; his hands flattened out as he reached over the table and grabbed his screwdriver, sipping his drink carefully. He had not broached the subject of what he did during most of the seventies. The two of them silently agreed that his time fighting Communists and American and Australian-New Zealander expansion into Southeast Asia under the guise of stopping communism and fascism was his calling. It was his blood calling for him to do something other than show off to the intellectual elite of the quarian and German nations that he was just like them. In short, whether or not he wanted to, his Father's calling was turning its ugly attention to him and he was unable to resist it._

_"Killing, raping the locals, burning the villages to a cinder…" John shot back, grinning as he finished his drink, "All that standard bleeding heart liberal bullshit you hear the Hollywood and Paris types sob about… Fucking Jane Fonda types worshiping on the very alter of the 'glorious brotherhood' Marx dreamt of."_

_Alexandria pushed herself back, her expression becoming one of annoyed disgust. It was just like the old days, John mused. It was the old English and Germany rivalry after the forced peace in Casablanca. He would say something and she would be unbelievably enraged by it. It was his favourite source of entertainment. It was something that had been growing rarer as Alexandria was becoming more and more dependent upon him. Dissension was the first casualty in their war against her ailment._

_"You can't even be serious about telling me what you did with the Paladin Group. That is why I am scared of you!" Alexandria rasped out, crossing her arms as she glared furiously at him. "You have everything a lot of people do not have. A family that loves you, parents that saw and dealt with the monsters that you worked with. You became your Father without the uniform he wore. And at least he had the excuse of not knowing anything better. Your Father taught you better than that and still you threw it away!"_

_"So you fancied me but you feared me. Is that why you married him?" He inquired, unblinking as kept his faint smile for the woman who was staring at the glass of water. "He was a safer choice?"_

_The question was left hanging in the air. It was a question that was in the air between the two of them for the past four years. A whirlwind romance between her and the American… or was he Canadian? Whatever Adam was, he had suddenly shown up her arm shortly after he joined Daedalus, despite having only known her for a few months and he being eight or so years younger than she. It was very scandalous, at least to his Mother anyway._

_"I married him because I love him. It wasn't that he was safer, Adam… He's less complicated, he's dependable and he's everything I wish I could have been like." She whispered finally._

_John narrowed his eyes at the remark. Surely she wasn't being serious. He had offered her just about everything only to see a great mind slum for mediocrity? _

_"Yet you're sitting here and have been here for the past five months with no contact with him." He pointed out, his smiling dying as he stared at her carefully. "I have more than enough room for him and the baby to move in. Hell, I'll spring for a nanny. We could always use an extra hand, even if he's just a Physician. I'm sure he'll understand some of it. Even if he doesn't I'm sure he would be willing to help with the tertiary research."_

_She remained very still as John erased every reason for keeping Adam in the dark that he could think of. Alexandria looked as though he had punched her. _

_"I don't want them here." She finally admitted to him. "I don't want them to see me like this, a bloody mess that will only get worse." Pausing, Alexandria sipped her water, adding. "I just… Adam will be better off with caring for a child. He'll be a much better Father than I would be a mother, even if I was healthy. Besides, he'll have his hands full with her. The last thing he needs is ruining the next few years for him."_

_She trailed off, silently she stood, her hands trembling as she gripped the table. Carefully she stepped forward, her mouth forming half a smile as she allowed her hand to touch the side of John's neck. John tensed up, his own hand instinctively fall on top of hers._

_"Besides," She breathed. "You and I have a lot of work ahead of us… I do remember you promising to save me…."_

_John swallowed, his mind searching for something, anything to say to that. Yes, he had made that promise to her. He would save her; he would not let her die on his watch. Regardless at how much she might have been jesting him at the moment. She thought his intentions foolish._

_"Holy shit, Cobain killed himself!"_

_It was Isabella, jabbering wildly like Spanish women did; her voice wild and shocked. She was clearly stoned on the combo THC and by her own hand. Finishing his drink, he glanced to Alexandria standing in the doorway, her hand clutching the frame. She offered him a faint smile before she turned away, leaving John alone in the dining room._

_"Couldn't have happened to a better person, Ochoa," John shouted back as he stood to join his bodyguard who was getting high in the lounge. "I blew thirty grand on company tickets for Rome and the son of a bitch overdosed!" _

….

"Boss, are you ready to go?"

Looking up from his terminal he found Isabella standing in the doorway in his private room in the German consulate. Still was in quarian made tactical gear, sans helmet. In one of her hands a G36 rifle, in the other she was tucking a P90 personal defence weapon into her holster, leaning against the door sat a folded stock SPAS-12 Combat Shotgun.

John raised his eyebrow at her. It was like she thinking taking one step out onto American soil warranted being armed to the teeth. This was not new, and yes, she did take her job seriously when he told her they didn't need to be this armed. Still it did not matter to her. When it came to security, John had no say in the matter. So long as she was licenced to carry in foreign countries, her load out was up to her.

"You realize that Americans are docile creatures, right?" He reminded her dryly. "I presume you know it since you are one."

All the woman could do was chuckle lowly.

"Was one, besides you never know what's going to happen here, sir." Was her response as she slung her rifle over her shoulder, "It's your job to be charming, warm and receptive; it's my job look like I'm permanently PMSing so I scare the shit out of everyone who might even have a fleeting thought of harming you."

Somewhat touched by her protectiveness and not about to argue the point, John nodded, pulling his jacket over his shoulder and buttoning it up. John joined Ochoa, who pulled the Shotgun over her shoulder and followed him out of the dignitary quarters and downstairs to the main lobby. They paused only briefly to wait for Galina who was gathering her data pads together and placing them into her briefcase. In them contain notes on their matured technological jumps; Limbs, organ replacements, Cancer suppressers and a multitude of vaccinations and cures for virus that his and his partners in the Uarelai Medical Coalition had tracked and stopped.

"What's on the schedule or is this just spur of the moment." Galina inquired carefully, pausing briefly, she added. "You know, so you don't have to deal with what happened..."

Pushing the implications of not dealing with Alexandria to the pit of his gut, John snorted as he grabbed his cigarette case.

"I'll have you know that we've been placed on the guest list to the White House... which I hope Ochoa here will leave her arsenal behind in the car," He responded, earning a roll of Ochoa's eyes. "Then, in a few days I have been invited to speak at John Hopkins and then we'll be wining and dining with the NAU elite. This is just a bullshit publicity stunt to warm up the relations. The NAU is desperate and prideful, we're colonizing the Solar System and Alpha Centauri and Proxima, on the verge of starting war against the geth and re-establishing contact with the rest of the galaxy, while the NAU can't get over an oil addiction, have barely just set up a public internet."

"I am starving. Perhaps we could get something to eat?"

"I'm sure you will find something here. The Americans will not have much in the way of quarian hospitality elsewhere." He informed his sister. Grinning as he added. "Fact is I Think as of two days ago. There are officially maybe ten quarians on the continent. I will have some shipments flown in for the stay."

Entering the loud lobby of the embassy, the noise did not keep up as the vast room fell silent as the officials and guests turned to see the tall, first generation Prussian born. Exhaling, he offered he faint grin for the room as his hands fell into his jacket pockets. He glanced over to Ochoa, who continued scowl at everyone. She was clearly unmoved by the silence. She was too busy on the job. His sister on the other hand, turned away

"It's heart-warming to see so many friendly faces in the land of the free and the home of the brave…"

A rumbling chuckle was returned to him. Before he knew it as he was stepping off the last stair, his hand was suddenly grabbed by the German ambassador. Kind words were exchanged that John paid no real attention to. His attention was focused on a man, whose back was turned to him. He was sitting there, bouncing a little girl on his knee as he spoke with an embassy official. Silently he nudged Ochoa, who turned to him. The woman pursed her lips and nodded.

"Adam?" He called out as he nodded to the ambassador, dismissing him.

Adam Ackerson looked up from the paperwork and stared up to John. John held a mild grin for the man. He felt like doing anything but grinning, but it was all he could show. John turned back and glanced to Ochoa and his sister. Both of them nodded and continued onto the cafeteria, leaving John rubbing his neck uncomfortably as Alexandria's widower stood up, his hand still touching against the smaller, lighter skinned and significantly younger splitting image of Alexandria.

"A small world we live in." Adam spoke to the silent man as he stopped in front of him. "Had I known you were coming over I would have given you a ride."

Adam merely shrugged. He was in a state of shock still. It was strange to see that he still appeared to love her. Even after two years of isolation from her. He knew that the man had tried to contact her, God, for the past two years it was right up there with watching Alexandria deteriorate, having to turn Adam away at Alexandria's request. He knew that the logic to her reasoning was sound. It still felt as though she was becoming a machine.

"I'm checking into the consulate and then I'm heading up to Vancouver. We'll see how long it'll take before I'm kicked out" Adam explained as he looked back down to Amala. "I haven't seen my parents in... Well... since I came to the Reich. I figured Amala would like to see her grandparents and the rest of the clan."

John quirked his lips, his hands touching against his cigarette case.

"You... you never returned?" John spoke, unable to believe his own words "So they know you're coming, did they know you were married? Not even to tell them about her?"

Adam just sort of shrugged. Unfazed that he made a man who was usually unshakable surprised at what he was hearing. He had simply up and cut off all ties with his family? It was admirable to see such a commitment to his own

"I guess I just didn't see the point to tell them about the nuptials, didn't even tell them about Amala. I never had any plan on returning to be honest. This place… I just don't feel like its home. I'm only here for her. Priorities have sort of changed… guess this is one way to inform them their grandparents now.

"Herr Dokter Ackerson? We're ready for you."

Adam and John looked away from each other and stared at the minor embassy official standing in the doorway to her offices. Adam nodded and looked down at his child fondly. Silently, John dropped his hand down onto Amala's shoulder.

"I'll take Amala, you go on."

Glancing between his employer and his daughter, Adam slowly nodded. He leaned in and pressed his lips against her forehead before shuffling out from under her and followed the Embassy official into her office. Turning, John stared at the child; he was finding himself somewhat overwhelmed already. He might have volunteered himself to watch her, but that did not mean he was a paternal type. To him, attachments to the very young were bothersome. No, if you wanted a Hoch to child rear, you would have to go to either Haeva or Erika for that sort of thing. Eventually he would have to find an heir, but not now. Not when he had so much work to do.

Watching Amala look down at the floor, John awkwardly wrapped his arms around her armpits and lifted her down to the ground. To be honest he wasn't even sure that he should be letting her walk on her own. Yes, he might have been aware of the physiological development of the human brain, but still, in the back of his head he thought it best if he held her instead.

Whatever it was, John watched her stand there, swaying slightly, her eyes looking up to him, her hand still high in the air as she held his with a relatively firm grasp for a two and a half year old…. Or was she three? No more than three for sure.

"So..." He started; his voice unnatural to him. "I suppose you're hungry… Would you like to meet your Aunt Galina?"

The girl nodded shyly.

"Daddy is sad." Amala mumbled her eyes wide as she focused on looking in the direction of where her Father was. John frowned briefly before leaning down and gathering the small child in his arms.

"Yes he is." John agreed with the girl as he carefully carried her.

**...**

* * *

**...**

"So I did some digging into your school life, Carter. I hope you don't mind..."

Greg House dropped a file folder in front of the Carter boy known as Landon. He was sitting at a small table set up in the room for Wilson to work at. Carter, whose hand was being used as a pillow and appeared to be close to sleeping, snapped back and jumped back out of his chair, shocked by the sudden movement made by the doctor with nothing better to do.

"Courtesy of your ever thoughtful principal." House said as he opened the folder up. "It says here that were nearly charged with reckless endangerment and trespassing… A boy who was after my own heart -Intelligent but bored…Certainly quite a change as of late, considering you're now dating a Reverend's daughter and all. My theory is that she likes to fix damaged people because she can't fix herself."

Carter sat back down at the table, his hand flicking through a permanent record he had no idea was capable of retrieval. Slowly, he looked up to meet House's impassive stare.

"Why?"

House could only really shrug at the one word question.

"Beaufort is dull. When I'm dull I tend to dig through things that might make it interesting." Was all he had to say on the matter.

House turned away and glanced to the out cold patient. She had spent of the past day being poked and prodded by Wilson. She even went so far as to allow Wilson to extract bone marrow for his research. She did not cry, she was surprisingly tough for a girl in her condition. House had to admire it, really. She was certainly tougher than he had first assumed.

Perhaps that was the thing that made this boy delusional. He figured and Wilson figured she had a fighting chance to survive a cancer left untreated for two years because of an ingenious combination of a couple of idiot yokel physicians, a theological Father who death worshipped and a naïve girl who thought she would find a way back into some improbable God's arms after she died a slow, humiliatingly degrading leukaemia death.

"Jamie, she's changed me." Carter softly explained, trying to negate some of the charges. "She showed me that I could... you know... get out of here."

House arched his brow.

"So in other words, you have no spine… So much for being after my own heart I suppose."

The boy snapped his neck back up and turned to look at house with wide eyes. Clearly he was shocked by the assessment.

"Of course you have no spine; you let your first little girlfriend completely altering your persona." House found himself taunting the teenager who wanted to be treated like an adult. "Dropping everything you ever knew for some girl you haven't even had sex with. Not that you would know any better. Picking a sick girl as the source of your affections can offer a convenient excuse to dump any trace of a personality.

"I didn't know that she was sick." The boy mumbled defensively. House, however, was not going to take that excuse.

"It doesn't take a genius to spot someone in late stage leukaemia." House jeered, enjoying watching the kid squirm. "Poke her with a fingernail and she'll bruise, wipe off whatever makeup you see the discolouration. You don't need a medical degree to tell that something was off with her. Perhaps the thought of deflowering the virgin reverend's daughter was preoccupying your thoughts. Not that I could blame you if I were in your position..."

_"Could you please stop insulting Landon... I did my best to keep it from him."_

House turned his attention to the source of the voice. Jamie had awaken, her eyes half closed as she nestled into her blankets to look for some extra warmth. It was too bad about her strict Christian upbringing. She could have had Carter in her bed working as a human element, but such things were looked down on by a Father who allowed his daughter to die rather than to fight for every damn moment she could squeeze out of this one life.

Carter's expression broke into a bright smile as he shuffled back over to her side, his hands carefully holding hers. His mouth leaned down to kiss her knuckles as House distinctly heard the words "Good afternoon baby' escape the near adult's lips. House recoiled, affection with no benefits other than watching a loved one die. This by was a fucking sadist….

"A deceitful girlfriend, I would have thought you of all people would be aware of that being buried somewhere in the bible." House mused as he crossed his leg over good one. Smirking slightly, he added. "Then again, everybody lies, I suppose."

Jamie could only shake her head.

"It wasn't a lie." She mumbled. "I thought I was doing it for his benefit."

House huffed.

"That's still a lie." He reiterated. "Perhaps if you had told when you first started dating… what… Three days ago?"

"A month." Carter injected.

"Consider this my _sincerest_ apology." House bit back. "A month, then perhaps you would be well on a path to treatment by now…"

The girl, pale and bruised, somehow found the blood to manage a blush at the statement. She did not reply and instead gripped Carter's hand. The boy smiled and moved his hand through her hair. Before anyone realized it, Wilson stepped into the room, glancing too everyone gathered in the bedroom. Look at the expression on House's face, Wilson rolled his eyes.

"I see you're awake and being harassed already." Wilson greeted the girl, his hand checking the blood transfusion pressure. "It's always best to ignore House when he's in this state. He seems to think patient care involves insulting patients and their families"

Jamie rolled her line of sight over towards the grizzled Doctor House, she smiled at him faintly.

"Doctor House isn't as hard as he tries to delude us into believing." The girl teased, still smiling slightly before she turned back to Wilson, adding. "How... how did the blood work look?"

Pulling a fresh bag of blood out of the freezer set up in the bedroom, Wilson went to work changing the over to a new supply of fresh blood for her.

"The results are pending. For now I've placed you on the bone marrow transplant waiting list." Wilson spoke to the girl in that sickeningly empathetic. He leaned over, opening the medical cabinet and pulled out a urine contain, adding. "I'm hoping you're feeling up to going to the bathroom, I don't have a MRI on hand so we're doing this the old fashion way until we can organize a place for you up in Princeton."

Clutching the container, in one hand, Jamie nodded at the request and silently allowed both Wilson and Carter to step forward to pull her carefully out of the bed. She looked dazed already and she hadn't even moved on her own accord just yet. It was pathetic to watch. Wilson turned his eyes back to house, whom merely shrugged and pointed to his cane.

"Don't look at me, I'm just a cripple." House retorted before Wilson could say anything.

Audibly flustered by the leering House, Wilson took over for Carter and carefully walked the ill girl out of her room. Jamie's eyes never left her boyfriend. As soon as the door closed behind the Doctor and the Patient, Carter ran his hand through his hear, sighing as he tiredly walked towards the veranda doors that overlooked the backyard of the Sullivan residences. House said nothing; he simply stretched out and closed his eyes, his hands pulling out his bottle of Vicodin.

He could hear the seat in front of his be suddenly sat in with a dull thud.

"I'm thinking about marrying her, Doctor House."

House blinked his eyes back open, but it did not stop him from down his pills.

The boy looked at him expectantly, as though House had an opinion on teenage marriage. Were these children raised in a Disneyesque fantasyland? Did this kid not know what the hell he was thinking about to sign onto? The days and night she would spend in agony or incoherent from the vast amounts of drugs she would have to use to forget that her blood was being poisoned by cancer and potentially another round of chemotherapy?

"What, do I look like your Father?" House said instead said, rather than express what was on his mind. "Is this something I need to know?"

The boy didn't reply to the remark. For a kid his age, he had a surprising amount of restraint. Perhaps he simply did not have the energy. He was already tired from the mixture of staying up all night and playing servant to the girl; and this was only the beginning of her slide. If the boy was barely functional now, how in the hell was he going to deal with a crying, vomiting broken girl. Faith would not stop the fear of death, it could not. She was going to break soon and so would he thanks to him being so goddamn emotionally invested.

"She has this goal to be married in the same church as her parents…" The Carter boy pressed on. "I love her, and I want to help her see to it… Even… Even if it doesn't end the way I want it to..."

House hiccupped, simulating a man looking close to vomiting. Why did he have to deal with this? Why couldn't Wilson handle this garbage human element? He would have gladly done the urinalysis. At least that would hold much more interest than listening to some boy angst about his walking dead girlfriend.

"How… _sweet_." Was all he could say without it turning into utter sarcasm. The boy noticed the sarcasm and frowned briefly.

"Wilson is a nice guy, he seems to see there is hope for her, and I'm right there next to him." The boy spoke up once again. "I... I can't stand the thought of her not being around... but I need to know what you think… What's your honest opinion? I'm trying to be confident bu- "

"I think you and her should be looking for burial plots." House interjected, still staring off, not paying attention as the boy flinched. Clenching his lips, he turned his head to face the Carter boy.

"I think that this whole thing is delusional denial of the inevitable." House pressed on, his voice empty as he leaned forward, both hands gripping his cane handle. "Wilson and I have seen this time and time again and so far it's only Wilson who deludes himself into thinking that he can somehow save someone already dead."

House stood up from his seat and sat down on the edge of Jamie's bed. He grabbed the sandwich from off the plate. His eyes looked at the boy whose head was bowed briefly before he took his first bite. Disgusted they would feed a terminal patient that god awful processed American cheese; House dropped the sandwich on the plate and spat it out.

"I think that your plan to marry her is foolish and that is an understatement. I would use desperate if you did not look so pathetic." He pressed on, wiping his hands on his jeans. "Very quickly the good days will be outnumbered by the bad. You will spend most of your marriage cleaning vomit and have yourself a 17 year old baby that well just die in a matter of months. But I suppose damaged goods have an appeal in itself."

Smirking slightly as the boy cringed, House stood up.

"That aside, I think that you're over your head; but that doesn't mean you're the only who gets in over their heads when this happens." House added. His hand almost touching the kid's shoulder before he realized what he was doing and pulled back. "Some people are just incapable of comprehending death. Some are also unable to comprehend that life isn't kind and just. It's a world where seventeen year olds get cancer, babies are born with mental and physical defects, and parents outlive their children more often than we care to admit."

House paused to laugh with no humour to it.

"It's also a world that if this Sullivan girl had been born three thousand miles east of here, this cancer would have been just a scare…"

Shaking his head, House turned his field of view back up to the pale looking Carter boy.

"Now, is that what you want to hear?"

The boy quirked his lips, a flash of hope crossed his face. House groaned. He should not have brought it up.

"Wait a second…" Carter nearly exclaimed. "There are cures in Europe?"

Reluctantly, the diagnostician nodded his head. It was embarrassing to admit that due to government stubbornness, technology had to be developed on their turns. Sure, the Krauts were cheating by having made friends with those… aliens, but what they have to cheat with was so much neater then they had. He might have been considered one of the best in the continent, hell, in most of the world, but in those isolated lands of central Europe and North Africa, he was light-years behind.

"All of the advancements made over there have been deemed unsafe by FDA regulations." House explained, watching as a dawning of realization crossed Carter's face. "If you have the money, any foreigner could be treated." Gesturing to his wrecked leg, he added. "Unfortunately, if I did not have the cash and connections to head to the mandate or the Reich, then your girlfriend certainly wouldn't. "

"If it's so expensive, then how would Jamie afford it if she was born over there?"

House merely stared at the boy.

"The treatments are cheaper for citizens. The government subsidizes the medical augmentation companies just like big Pharmaceutical is subsidized over here, except they have fixes, over here we have drugs." He explained, leaning on his cane, "The funny thing is, one of their Medical Augmentation firms offered up his treatments half a decade ago… we refused. More profit to medicate then to outright cure and prevent…"

"_We refused?_" The teen breathed, cutting off the physician, his voice disbelieving to the truth. "Are they stupid? How could we refuse that?"

House frowned slightly. Why was he talking to the boy about a moot issue? It would be years before this would again matter. The girl would be long dead before the end of the Cold War would occur.

"Of course we refused it, Cold War paranoia, Reagan's personal cadre of scientists and researchers believed the technology used would be deployed to take physical, maybe mental control of the people who use the augmentation technology. The cures and vaccinations could contain a dormant retrovirus or poison." House explained, rolling his eyes at the thought. "Sure makes you proud to see a Fascist, son of a genuine Nazi, reach out and offered us a hand in friendship and it was beaten away by lobbyists and Reagan's Alzheimer's induced paranoia; But hey, that's the good old U.S of A for you."

Finishing Jamie's sweet tea, Greg slumped back into his old seat once again, his hands gripping his cane. He watched Carter as he paced, his expression was one of genuine anger. To know that a fix was within grasp, yet too far away to be used for the one person who he thought needed it the most.

"That's wrong." He nearly growled. "Sure he might be a Nazi bastard, but he could have saved millions had they trusted him and he was being straight up with us... How could they do that? How could they not take that chance?"

House nodded.

"You're right, mistrust was justifiable, but how would it hurt to at least look into whatever this Hoch was doing." House, for the first time, agreed with the young Carter's sentiment completely. "His works could have saved most of the four million or so cancer deaths that died since he was last here, the two hundred thousand plus HIV/AIDS infections could have been neutralized."

Deciding he needed to go out and get a breath of fresh air, House stood back up. He paused briefly as he reached Carter's side, his hand falling heavy on the boy's shoulder.

"You are forgetting the most important point I made." He concluded, watching the anger in the teenager's face closely, he softened his tone and added. "Life isn't fair, Kid. No matter how much we idealize it."

With that said and now officially done having a conversation, House let go and left the bedroom, leaving Carter fuming about the mistakes made so many people. Mistakes that, in all likelihood, would cost the girl he loved her very life.

**…**

* * *

**…**

**All done, hope it was enjoyable.**

**Can't believe I am saying this, but Uplifted: Revolution's interlude snuck right up on me. Looks like Tali and Shepard will be seen very, very soon.**

**Back to my computer I think I am going to post a picture of my poor old machine which I have written it into the grave. I'll give the details for your amusement. For me, it's my eulogy.**

**I put her through hell.**

**Her casing was cracked**

**Several keys are missing.**

**Everything right of 'p' is dead, so she was hooked up to a USB keyboard. When that happened I knew she would become a terminal case soon. The laptop keyboard only worked when a computer needed the rebooting that would save her. But it was gone, so she is gone too.**

**Her touchpad is dead so she has a mouse installed. **

**A screw is missing in the hinge, so she cannot be properly closed. **

**A battery with the grand total of two and a half minutes of juice.**

**An AC adapter that needs to be angled the right way or it doesn't work.**

**Her Operating System was an out of date Xandros oriented Linux, so about 60 percent of the internet was not available.**

**500,000 kilobytes of Ram that went down to 5000 if I had the internet and open office running.**

**Every three months she needed to be totally wiped clean.**

**She survived a full glass of water spilt on her. **

**She was a ten inch six year old EeePC netbook, yet she was a fucking terminator.**

**You might laugh at this, but she is the reason you're reading my work. She was my workhorse and now she's gone.**

**Rest in Peace, Cameron*….**

**(*Cameron is a terminator from the TV series. Watch it.)**


	4. I Shouldn't Have Said No, 'Dria

**Took a while to get this finished, oh well. It's out and I hope you enjoy.**

**….**

* * *

**…..**

**Chapter Four: I Shouldn't Have Said No, 'Dria.**

**...**

"_Sir, I realize that you are neck deep in projects and sensitive personal matters, but the Japanese government has approached us for a meeting July 4th. The board can handle it if you want, but the Japanese have expressly displayed an interest in you being there."_

"_It's fine, Hosenfeld, really. I'll be there on Monday, but I cannot commit more than a few hours to them. Have I received a yes from the ARD?"_

_Downing his drink, John happily sighed as he crossed one leg over his knee. It was hard to believe that work had become a refuge from the reality he had been living since last December. When Alexandria said farewell to her spouse and moved in with him so she could remain focused on her work. It meant that he had become her caretaker, as he assured her he would._

_That was not to say he did not enjoy her company, it was just… lately the bad days were starting to become on par with the good. It made everything real to him. She was dying. She was dying and despite putting twelve to eighteen hour days and millions of Marks into the project, there looked to be no immediate fix in sight. There were flare ups of hopes. Weakened diseased nerve cells being attacked in cultures by nanomachines, but a manmade cure would take years. It was years that she just did not have, and that was what scared him the most._

_Life expectancy in untreated ALS patients was five years of slow degradation. Even with life prolonging medications on hand, many afflicted in the Reich simply opted for assisted suicide, it was just that terrible. Alexandria on the other hand had no plan for that. During one of their increasingly grim heart to hearts, she was talking him into giving her implantations. Muscle straighteners, Lung compressors to keep her breathing without a machine. She even wanted a vocoder speech enhancer when her vocal cords stopped working._

"_Sir?"_

_Shuddering as he stared into his drink, he glanced up to find his board staring at him curiously. John swallowed his scotch and looked up to them properly; his slight frown forming back into a confident smile, Hosenfeld tilted his head slightly, glancing back to his compatriots. Clearing his throat he pressed on for his employer._

"_Kaila'Xen is bitter about this reallocation of funds from her department." He stated to John, who was reaching for his cigarettes. "She wants a word to argue her case."_

_Kaila. John rubbed his brow. Kaila'Xen was a talented, but temperamental developer in pushing the limits of the human development. She had been obsessed with just how genetically diverse the species was. She was also, unfortunately deep in the pockets of another master. The Kaiserwehrmacht, as they were still more popularly called, the Wehrmacht. Titles did not matter. The important thing was that Kaila had made many promises to them. They would after all make up a bulk of the eventual invasion of the Peruses Veil. They would be the landfall force that hit the sands of Rannoch. Kaila, an ardent homeworlder felt it best to provide the offensive with every advantage they could find to use over the geth._

_It also didn't help that Mother and Father had fought the English with her Grandfather back in 1942. By God, he looked like a fucking asshole. Their description of him made John realize the apple hadn't fallen far from the tree._

_Asshole Grandfather's aside, to Kaila, augmentation and the rest of the research funding should be strictly held for military application. John was by far no means a man who did not support his military, but to be a one industry focused company? It was absurd. Leaning back into his seat, he sipped his water, his eyes never leaving the board. They were all of them ruthless men, who had limited authority in the company they were a part of, but both held great ambition and a background in the blueblood German nobility. Serving under Hoch, a first generation Prussian born must have really burnt their asses._

_Grinning slightly at them, John stood up and moved himself through the projector image of the boardroom, pushing through the table and right through Hosenfeld, who turned to watch as his boss went to pour himself another drink._

"_Her funding has been coming out of my pocket for the past five months." John said as he sipped his new scotch and turned back to face them. "If Kaila wants her project undisturbed she had better convince the Military the value of having their spinal column enhancers delivered on time, they had better open their chequebook and start making the payments on time."_

_A low grumbling occurred, it was clear that the board did not agree with him. Kaila offered them massive military contracts in the near future augmentation technology and was far, far more lucrative then medicine in the short term. Still, at least they knew that John was not only the head and founder of Daedalus, but the corporation was privately held by him as well. They would listen to him._

"_I will relay that to Miss Xen… now, I realize this broaches a sensitive subject and I apologize in advance." Hosenfeld spoke up, his voice low and concerned he was offending his employer. "It's just that there have been… concerns as of late, John, Your recent overtime research with Doctor Ackerson has raised eyebrows. Rumours have it that you have begun playing with the brain now. This talk was spread amongst the religious groups. They feel you're playing too close to-"_

_Stubbing out his cigarette, John held up his hand._

"_I know this old line, what have they called me now." He interrupted. Playing 'Who Called Him What' was always one of his favourite joys in the limelight. With his nose to the pavement since December, his social interaction had been non-existent as of late._

_Besides the age old Nazi card, John's personal favourite had been from Mother Teresa of all people. She said he was one of the few of God's children not born with the capacity for compassion. He had to admit, that one made him laugh, not so much when he found out Father had to stop Mother from going to India so that she could put bullet through her head._

_What in the hell was wrong with his parents anyways? Age usually tempered people. Not in their case however. _

"_The Archbishop of Westminster has… well..." Hosenfeld started briefly before trailing off as he looked into his boss's expression of amusement. Clearing his throat roughly, he said. "To quote him word from word, he said "I am afraid we are in dark times now, for across the ocean separating free Europe from slave Europe, he lives in the heart of the evil empire. Spawn of a Virgin birth, He is the Anti-Christ, revealed on God's Green Earth, his goal is to shape us all into beings that are no longer in God's image.'"_

_John rubbed his neck, unable to believe what he was hearing. How did he know that the woman who carried him on his real mother's behalf had been a virgin? It wasn't exactly something his Father and Mother had planned. The girl made the offer, and they accepted. Though... It probably did come off as odd, being a virgin birth. Chuckling, John shook his head as he took a seat._

"_The Archbishop you say?" John mused, still grinning crookedly. "Well, once His Holiness confirms it, perhaps I will address the claim. In the meantime, it's back to work."_

"_Sir… He called you the Anti-Christ." Hosenfeld repeated to him, his voice stressing the point. "I suggest you add additional security to the facilities and to yourself. You never know if a lunatic will take his words for truth and go about taking you out."_

_John waved it aside, this was not their concern, Having spent years dodging and fighting Green Berets and Australian/New Zealander SAS men across the Southeast Asia for a quarter of a decade, this was simply an amusement. Not that he would publicly acknowledge that he wasn't as defenceless as he appeared to a room of former Wehrmacht officers._

"_Isabella is more than sufficiently competent to protect me. If she feels facilities are in need of an influx of security, then I will heed her advice." He assured them. "Besides, Catholics haven't been intimidating since the Inquisitions. They are the past. I am the future… just don't go to the reporters with my response. I think they would have a field day with-"_

_Suddenly a voice called out from outside of his lounge._

"_John? John, I need your help…!"_

**…..**

* * *

**….**

"John… John… wake up, it's ten minutes before you go on. Oh why must you do this?"

She was not one to nag, but when her influential brother was high on cocaine and napping while a crowd of two thousand plus as well as American network television cameras were gathering to listen to him speak, Galina could not help but feel nervous by proxy. She glanced back to Isabella who was sitting opposite of John; she was almost in a state of attention.

At long last, John opened his eyes, Galina let loose an audibly exhale. He did not look at her; instead his head rested against the top of the touch, the first thing he saw was the ceiling. He groaned, faintly rubbing his nose from the blood staining down his nostrils, a side effect of the copious amounts of cocaine now flowing through his system.

Feeling Galina's hand touching against his cheek, her voice was concerned; worried for the state her Brother had been in. It masked her furious anger with him. This was unbelievably stupid. He should not have been here in the first place. Without offering him any warning, Galina reached into his jacket pocket and took what little cocaine he had on him. He groaned in protest. In a moment of anger inherited from her mother, she slapped the man hard across his cheek, instantly waking him up.

"Why are you doing this to yourself?" She nearly growled, brushing her long silver hair from out of her eyes. "This is foolish, beyond foolish. You should be at home, with our family. You aren't in a healthy mindset, the drugs are only about to make it worse... Please, cancel this."

Rubbing his cheek, John pulled himself off the couch and went for his cigarettes. Galina took a step back, despite being siblings in all ways but blood; she still held an unconscious fear of John. It was an irrational fear, but people this fried on a stimulant. She could see him shaking, his pupils dilated as he glanced between Galina and to the silent Isabella.

"I am here… I am I doing this."

With that, Isabella stood up; she was nearly as tall as John. John called her an amazon type. Isabella was not impressed by the title.

"With all due respect, Boss, but that is a very stupid idea." She chastised, her tone softened slightly as she added. "We can cancel this at any time. They will understand if you cancel, they're not heartless idiots. Galina is right, you need to go home. It's for the best and you know it."

Exhaling his cigarette, John rubbed the bridge of his nose. Galina stood there, her hand carefully outreached to touch John's forearm. John looked up. He looked absolutely devastated, but was unwilling to show weakness to anyone.

"No… they need to know what they did to me. How much of my time I wasted on them…" He breathed. "What they did to her."

Ignoring her protests, John wandered his way to the stage. [aying no mind to the two of them following him closely..

…

* * *

…

_Hearing her speak to him so helplessly was all it took for John to cut short his meeting with his board and bolt up the stairs._

_In some ways it was like having a child of his own. He was constantly on the near paranoia induced alert, just waiting for something bad to befall Alexandria, who had a downturn in her health in June. She had her first seizure while they were working. She had just gotten back to work, having had John working overtime in her place so that the work did not stall in her three week absence. He did not mind the extra work. John, who was not easily shaken by many things, had been scared his entire time sitting up in her private hospital room. _

_It both made him feel absolutely helpless and forced him to look for a way to save her from her failing body._

_There, sitting on the floor with her knees up and pressed against her chest was Alexandria, staring blankly as the hot water of the tub steamed as it hit somewhat cool air. She looked almost mesmerized as she watched the evaporation. Ignoring the dull throb burning in his gut, John stepped forward at a slow, careful pace. He did not wish to disturb her too much._

_She exhaled, her eyes pried away from the steam and instead turned to focus on John who stood there. Unbothered by her own nudity, she ushered John over to join her. He obliged, closing the door behind him. Getting closer, he could tell that she was shaking. Her eyes turned away and shot around the room. She did not seem able to focus._

"_I fell." She spoke like a child, her voice rueful like she had been caught taking something that did not belong to her. "I'm sorry, I know you were busy. I- I don't mean to be a bother I-I just wanted a bath. I should have asked Isabella to help me… I-I did not mean to scare you."_

_John, shushed her soothingly, his hand dropping down to touch her back, she was moving back and forth, as though she needed to remain herself that she was still in control of her body. It worked somewhat, her attention forced itself to focus on the new pressure moving up and down at the same pace of her rapid breathing. With her breathing back in her control, she focused back on to John, her eyes heavy with apologies for him._

"'_Dria… you know that you can interrupt me all you want. You come first." He reminded her, trying to keep his desire to be stern with her at a minimum. He quirked his lips as he squeezed her hand. "Besides, you were always a bother, didn't matter if you were sick or healthy."_

_He inspected her properly, the, from the back of her knee to her calf was starting to bruise from the fall. John grabbed a face cloth lying in the tub water and pulled it out. Ignoring the dripping hitting the hard granite flooring, he oppressed the hot towel against the damaged skin in a vain effort to alleviate the pain she probably did not know she should have been in._

"_I was never healthy." She murmured her voice almost rhythmic. "I was a time bomb… tick, tick ticking… to think I passed it on… I should have sterilized myself…. I- I-" _

_Again John shushed her, trying to derail her suggestion that the child she had should have been terminated. His heart couldn't believe what she was saying, his brain however agreed with her. His fingers grazed up and down her spine, occasionally pushing into the series of biopsy scars left behind which ran along her spine._

"_It was just a spill, we've had them before." He reassured her with a smile that hurt to wear. Forcing his voice to remain steady, he added. "We had some promising results with the TAR DNA-binding protein. We managed to kill… well... kill already dead infected cells…. We're going to look back on this and laugh. Like when we saved my Father from Pancreatic cancer. You and I… we beat up death itself, didn't we?"_

_John shot her a very amused grin. Finally Through her painful tears she managed to rasped out a single note of a laugh. _

_Still without any particular care for her own nudity, Alexandria turned back to him, her arms reached upwards and tenderly wrapped around his neck, her fingers pushed into his scalp. He could feel her as she buried her face into the crook of his neck. Her self-control now completely gone, she broke down into a wailing of tears. Her fingers flexed and retracted, as though she was holding on dear life. _

"_I'm scared…" She suddenly sobbed, her voice shaking as she looked up to him with her wide eyes. "I… Reinhardt, I'm so, so afraid…"_

_John's heart dropped to his throat. Alexandria never used his Christian name before, between John's insistence not to, and her occasional discomfort with anything German, she preferred John. To have her say, this was beyond just scared, she was in an absolutely terrified state of mind. Carefully he pulled his arms tighter around her._

_She pulled her head back and slammed her open hand against her forehead._

"_Get it together; this is so unbecoming of you…" He heard hiss violently. Blinking her tears away, she looked up to John. "Ask me questions." She begged. "All I've got is death on my mind… it scares me to contemplate it. Please… Distract me."_

_John nodded. Carefully, he pulled her back up off the floor and slowly led her to the tub. One hand pressed against her back, the other helped her lift her leg over the edge of the tub. She did not seem to notice the heat radiating from the water. Deciding not to mention his observation out loud, he laid her down into the water. She glanced back to John, awaiting him to change the topic off of a demise she believed was happening, but he refused to admit the situation was deteriorating._

_Shoving logic away as he grabbed a sponge off the side of the tub, he decided to form his words._

"_You said he was easy to love." John spoke up. "His simplicity was a deciding factor on why you fell for him."_

_Alexandria nodded; the conversation shifted towards her estranged husband was by far more preferable. _

"_Adam is simple, but not in a derogatory way." She murmured, closing her eyes as John rubbed the bath sponge in long winding circles. "He wasn't memorised by my work or my achievements, he didn't make grandiose gestures, he just did not need to. He was just… there. There when I needed him the most."_

_Ignoring the biting, uncharacteristic jealousy building up, John soaked the sponge, running it along the back of her neck. For the first time in a while, she had begun to relax. Her eyes drooped half closed as she sighed at John's tender ministrations. So there it was. Adam was the right kind of man at the right time. Silently he blamed the young North American for keeping her from admitting what was wrong with her. Four years she hid the truth from him._

_Why would she do that? He thought they were friends. Thick and thin. They might have had differences, but surely she could have pushed them aside for the sake of her health, for the sake of their friendship. It took the first symptom to get her to come forward and admit it. 'Dria was cold logic, so why was her one momentary lapse?_

_John let the sponge go and stood up, unbuttoning his jacket._

"_So… this was around the time when you were asking me for grant money into researching Motor Neuron disease..." John spoke up again, break her silent relaxation. "And I told you no…"_

_Cracking open her eyes once again; Alexandria shot him a crooked half smile._

"_No… Your exact words were 'What makes you think I have time and resources to waste on a genetic based neuron degradation that afflicts maybe a hundred thousand people a year, when I am trying to keep a fucking pandemic called HIV/AIDS from spreading any further?'" She reminded him, her fingers splashing through the surface of the water. Shyly, she glanced back to John, adding. "So… I wandered down to the medical centre and I asked him out on a date."_

_Pulling off his jacket and resting it on the sink, John kicked off his Cap toes; he carefully sat down onto the bath mat next to the tub. He felt terrible. Absolutely terrible. Why in the hell did she have such a good memory? They were words spoken in a drunken fit of rage when he had heard of yet another roadblock in his plans to modernize the medical industry in North America. God, he was such an asshole… He had made quite possibly an even worse mistake not to follow up on it until Adam found her lost and confused that fateful morning._

_They remained silent once again as John braced her carefully by her back. He leaned her head slowly into the tub, soaking her hair. He kept his eyes forward. It was not so much to keep his eyes off of her naked form, but so that he did not have to look into those tired brown eyes, searching his expression for any sign of weakness in his resolve. John did not offer a display of just how terrible he felt._

_Carefully, John pulled her back up. _

"_I should not have said that." He admitted, pushing his hands through her wet hair, "I should have listened… I made a foolish mistake... and you paid for it."_

_Her eyes, stained with tears simply shook her head. Slowly, she allowed her expression to form a nervous smile._

"_I asked at a bad time and it would have ended up being an all-night discussion…" She said, shrugging her shoulder. Pausing, she added. "Besides, I would have missed out on a very wonderful date."_

_Smiling somewhat at her words, spoken so sweetly, John nodded as he pushed the feelings of guilt and the growing jealousness which was threatening to appear in his expression; Thankfully running the sponge along 'Dria's back had made Alexandria close her eyes. He wanted to say something, anything, to show off his regret, to tell her that he should have been wiser, that his venture to America was nothing more than an expensive show boating, ego stroke, that brought him nothing but infamy._

_Infamy, and worse, allowed Alexandria's work to go impeded. It had caused the two friends to fray their relationship. It was the only time in many years that John had felt he was completely in the wrong. All of this, the bathing, the research, it was all a futile effort to make it up for a friend who had deserved so much better than she had gotten. _

_John could do nothing but arch his brow as he tried to suppress his feelings._

"_Just like that?"_

_Alexandria nodded._

"_You never… you never felt that feel long before, have you?" She rasped, still smiling slightly. "That spark of instant attraction, a fire that can't be doused out."_

_Oh... John felt that feeling before. He never had acted on it before._

"_The decade age difference wasn't a concern?" He inquired carefully. Alexandria shrugged casually, the water splashing against his forearms. Her hand reached up to hold his machine hand as the other slowly washed out the conditioner from her hair. She sighed as she relaxed into the scalp massage, her eyes closed._

"_It was a concern at first." She admitted. "It wasn't for long; Adam is an old soul… besides it won't be long before he ends up living longer than I…" Her eyes flew open in an instant, she looked up to him in a sudden fright, adding. "Oh God, please, please change the subject."_

_Finishing cleaning her hair of conditioner, John wrapped his arms around her shoulder, feeling as she went into another state of panic; his mind wandered for other topics. How could he change the subject when the two of them had the same thoughts on their mind? How could he possibly properly take care of her when he was in a state of close mental collapse himself; The only reason he did not do so, was her. She depended on him, showing a weak moment… it would kill her.  
_

"_The Archbishop of Westminster called me the Anti-Christ." He tried to joke. "I think your Father is going to enjoy hearing that his fears have been confirmed… Now, come on, let's get you out of the tub."_

_Feeling her nod against his chin, John slid his arms downwards and wrapped his grip under her armpit. Together the two of them worked to pull her back out of the tub. Leaving her sitting on the edge of the tub, slightly hunched over, John went to go find her a towel._

"_You're not as bad a man as everyone wants to believe, Reinhardt, as you think you are." Alexandria called out, her voice upset. "If they could see you now… "_

_John turned back to her, his head tilted as he handed her a long white towel to wear. Alexandria took it from him almost reverently; she remained dead silent as she draped it over her body._

"_If you could just find it in you to show this side of you to them," She murmured. "You... being human like the rest of us… Not having to be made of steel."_

_John did not reply, he simply helped to pull her back up to her just did not know what to say to her flattering words.  
_

**….**

* * *

**…..**

"So without any further ado, it is my pleasure to introduce Reinhardt Jonathan Hoch –founder and head of Daedalus Medical Industries. Mr. Hoch, come on out."

The sudden roar of applauds caught John's attention at long last. He glanced to Galina, and then to Isabella, who briefly smiled encouragingly. John drank from his flask briefly before tucking it away. Itching his nose, Hoch left his sister and guard and onto the bright stage. Clearing his throat, he briefly shook hands with the dean of the school. He glanced to the several Camera gathered around the stage, televising his presence to the world.

He offered the crowd a slight wave and a smile. John cleared his throat. It was show time

"Ladies and gentlemen of this fine institute, it is an honour to be here at your behest." John greeted the gathering. "Before we go on, you should all take a moment to silently give thanks to my old speech coach Fred Jameson. Without him you would not be listening to a smooth Pacific Northwest accent, but rather a loud accusing, humourless German yelling at you instead. For the sake of business and much to my family's consternation, I have not spoken German since 1974."

The room burst into a mixture of laughter and applauds for John's display of self-deprecating humour. He grinned wildly as he scanned the crowd. He could not believe how amused they were by such things.

"I would also like to take the time to congratulate you." He continued. "For the first since 1979, it appears that the United States and the rest of the Union have slowed down the infection rate of HIV/AIDS."

Yet again the gathering of scientists applauded their own efforts. It was absolutely disgusting in John's opinion. His eyes narrowed as the good humour vanished.

"_What are you all doing?"_ He inquired of the gathering with a great, loathsome disgust, his voice nearly a growl directed to them.

The cheering went dead silent in ten seconds flat. It left John standing in a sudden awkward silence. John reached into his pockets and retrieved his cigarette case.

"Did I say that was something to cheer about? That you should all pat yourselves on the back because you slowed down a virus that my close contemporaries in Uarelai Medical Coalition had tracked, tagged, isolated and destroyed nearly fifteen years ago?" He nearly hissed at them as he inhaled his cigarette. "No, ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing to applaud. Shame should be the only emotion coursing through you. On your watch, on your teacher's watch, you allowed Cold War paranoia override your sense of human duty and decency to speak up and do something when others were calling the virus a _Gay Cancer_. No, you played comforter to needlessly dying men, women and children and allowed the bigots to spend a decade blaming the homosexual community rather than listening to the warnings that this virus would become a pandemic if something wasn't done about it."

John inhaled his cigarette. He allowed his implications to set into the silent gathering.

"The warning was issued in 1979. Seventeen years ago. _SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO_." He exclaimed in disbelief, The quarians, who had no reason to fear the virus, went out of their way to get the word out. The Reich listened, The Fascist Union listened, even the goddamn Soviet's listened. _THE SOVIETS_, an isolated military state listened. Most of the civilized world listened, so... why did you all drop the ball so badly?"

He snorted, shaking his head.

"I will leave it to you to answer the question. I have since stopped caring for the excuse."

John could not believe this… he was turning into his Mother before the eyes of the NAU science community, God help him.

"While we are on the subject of not listening, some of you I am sure were around the last time I came to this fine nation of yours. Three million men, women... even children have been afflicted by Cancer. Of that a third or so has since succumbed to the ailment...a million of your people in the past seven years are dead… dead. I stepped onto the stage in 1989 with a tangible solution as to how to keep cells from erratically dividing and multiplying. I was booed off, politely told by one of your more notorious senators that a Nazi had no legitimate standing in the United States."

"For three years I pushed every government from state to the Union for a chance to prove it was safe. Instead I have been denied; each and every time I opened channels. I have sacrificed not just time and money; I have lost so much more than that…"

John trailed off; his heart was pounding in his chest. With shaking hands, he grabbed the glass of water and took a long careful drink.

"After the disaster that was the Battle for Aguni Lahwa, there a very wise American Commander, named Ernest Harmon who was tasked to reform the II Corp." John spoke up, earning a low rumble from the crowd. "He had referred to General Lloyd Fredendall as a moral and physical coward. General Fredendall had ordered a split up of his 1st Armour Division into several taskforces. He ordered this task forces to roll out past the operational air cover the allied air forces could provide, past the artillery strike zone, all to chase my Father's armour Kampfgruppe right into a trap. His pursuit of glory killed nearly nine thousand men captured a further two thousand, including the divisional commander."

He paused as he glanced to all of them. John reminding them of this terrible defeat was probably not the wisest course, but with the drugs flowing through him, his self control was nonexistent. This was his fucking show.

"Let me give you a sense at how terrible this was… My Father to this day cannot comprehend what was running through this man's mind. It was such a slaughter that he had wept over it. To allow one of America's best trained armour divisions to go through a meat grinder against a battle fatigued, smaller force. Like they were no better than the Soviets he had fought before them. He could not believe they would listen when by all certainly they should have died…"

"I realize war history isn't what you came here for, but I have a point to make out of this and I realize this plays heavily into the age old Germans love to fight stereotype. The thing is, the North American science community has been in the position of the 1st Armour Division for the past 52 years. The governments within the union have been your Fredendall. The quarians first approached you in peace, offering the gifts of knowledge, a chance to throw technological achievement ahead by a hundred years. These moral and physical cowards your people have elected have shown nothing but contempt by not placing trust in the quarian people."

"This is your chance to redeem yourselves, to pull yourself back from the eventual suicide course locked in." John said. "Millions of men, women and children afflicted with disease and disorders. Your country is now watching you this time."

John turned away from the crowd; he instead turned to properly address the dozens of primitive cameras before him. He hardened his expression. He paid no mind to the dignitaries suddenly weary at the presence of their media gathered around the German. With good reason, a direct appeal could lead to a revolution in opinion…

"Yes, this is why I have invited members of the media. My amateur mistake was to speak to members of the community and the political elite. This was my idealism getting in the way. I have since taken a page out of your Mr. Sagan's book and decided to appeal to the public." John continued, staring directly into the cameras. "Your leaders have allowed the pharmaceutical lobbies control the market. They provide no cures, just treatments. In essence they maximize their profits through your suffering."

He paused for only a moment.

"I will not stand here and lie to you. Fifty years of propaganda and deception is enough. My products are by no means cheap. Make no mistake, I am not a charity, I am quite despised in fact. In all likelihood there will need to be vast shift in the distribution of government funded healthcare in order to provide the lifesaving implants and cures I can provide."

John laced his hands together.

"This is where you, the common citizen comes in, the people who unwittingly elected these fools. It is your duty to let your governments know that a shift in thinking had better occur in the highest echelons of government. For the million deaths that occurred since I was last here is on their pudgy hand. Your Brothers and Sisters, Mothers and Fathers, dare I say even Children died in vain, died without knowing all of the options that were available to advert an untimely death. Here, in a superpower of all places. How is that possible? How could you, the people, allow the incompetent to do such a thing?"

Laughing incredulously, he stubbed his cigarette out on the podium. One last time, he leaned forward into the microphone.

"Make no mistake, I haven't claimed that I have cured death… but with your help, I'll be damn closer to it."

John left, ignoring the explosion of questions erupting from the crowd. He left not knowing three doctors down in North Carolina had watched his broadcast.

…

* * *

…

**Told? Absolutely Told.**

**I was asked if America is some cancer ridden shithole with, like, third world medicine. No, it is not. The cancer stats were collected from real cancer databases, collected over the 80's and 90's as are the AIDS rates. North America has the same sort of medical technologies that it had by 1996. Compared to the medical technology provided in the Uplifting, it would seem primitive in the mind of John.**

**Will the NAU receive a technological boost? Obviously, but it will be done in almost the same pattern as what happens for Germany. **

**Thanks for reading.**


	5. I Never Loved Her, Galina

_**All done.**_

_…**.**_

* * *

_…**..**_

_**Chapter Five: I Never Loved Her, Galina.**_

_…_

"_I can't sleep… Could I stay in here with you?"_

_Looking up from his work, laid out across his bed, John Hoch found Alexandria standing there in the doorway, hair still somewhat limp from the bath, her lips clenched together as her eyes moved back and forth examining him, searching for any signs of weakness in him. Carefully, Alexandria smiled crookedly as she shifted in place. John rubbed his head as he took in the sight of the dangerously thin woman._

_For a brief moment, he wished this nightmare was over for her. _

_Shaking the guilty thought away, he stared at her for a moment; John inclined his head slightly and pulled himself off his bed, collecting his things. He wandered his way to the woman leaning in his doorway, his hand reached to grip hers. Without any words, he led her back towards his bed, carefully sitting her down on the opposite side of the bed he was laying on. Heading back to his side, he opened up his bedside drawer and pulled out a small bottle of prescription sleeping pills. He rarely used the, himself, but it was better to be prepared. _

_As he turned around to show it to the woman, he watched Alexandria shake her head as she gingerly laid herself down on his bed, allowing a content sigh to be breathed out._

"_Think I should have gotten into this bed sooner… so soft." She mumbled._

_John made a mental note: Have Alexandria's current bed thrown out and replaced with the same make as his. _

_Dropping the pill bottle on the table top, he collected his datapad and went back to reading up on his Japanese contract his board had sent to him in preparation for his get together with the Japanese government officials. Hoping that they would not be sore about how the Reich cut ties off with the Empire of Japan the moment the Casablanca Peace Accord had been signed. It was a massive screw job to leave the Japanese dangling; but he remembered what his Father once told him. Erich von Manstein summed up the German attitude to the Japanese as this: _

"_The Japanese refused to open a second front against the Russians, and chose instead to attack the United States. Fuck them for convincing Hitler to declare war on the United States. They deserve their fate." _

_He did not realize that Alexandria had shuffled ever closer to him. Her hand reached out and fell onto his, forcing John's attention off his work._

_Setting his datapad on his night stand, he turned back to face the woman, who sat there, her eyelids were hooded as she looked up into his eyes. John forced a smile back into place as he extended one arm to wrap around her shoulders, the other resting on the thin skinned forearm. John tried not to think about how much it felt like hugging a skeleton._

"_I was thinking I could reassign a couple of my researchers to work in our place for a little while." John finally broke the silence, his index finger still grazing her forearm. "I think you and I need to get out of the lab for a little while. Galina could join the efforts for a small interval of time. Anywhere you want to go, we'll go."_

_Honestly, John had expected to be shouted at for the suggestion. That he would be accused of stalling any further research done by her. All for the sake of taking her on some sort of bucket list adventure to places she had never been before. The anger did not come however. She looked almost thoughtful at the suggestion he had made to her. _

_Her expression broke into a look of mild amusement._

"_Italy?" _

_Italy? John shrugged casually, trying to keep himself from smirking openly. It was nice to see she was still soft on occasion._

"_If you want, it is nice this time of the year."_

_Alexandria smiled slightly. She seemed to have been enjoying this. It was nice to see it._

"_Somewhere in the South Pacific?" Alexandria pressed on. "Or perhaps to Gal'avere, We haven't been to the quarian mandate in sometimes."_

_John shrugged mildly, his casualness bothering the woman just enough to make her lightly slap his shoulder._

"_Perhaps to the Pacific…" He said. "Do you really want to visit the desert in the middle of summer?"_

_The faint smile on her face widened slightly, she must have thought his coyness was rather unexpected to witness._

"_Fair enough… Well, how about Glastonbury?" She inquired, still offering him a grin. John looked at the woman with widened eyes, finally his neutral expression turned into one that was just as amused as she was._

_The suggestion had made John pause. Glastonbury was where she was raised, where her Father still lived to this day. Did… did she want to go visit her Father… without him prodding her into doing so? Perhaps this was the sign he was looking for. A first step towards at least convincing her to clean up the loose ends she left with Ackerson._

"_You will have to go solo on that sojourn." He stated, trying to not look amused. "Your Father probably would probably kill me when he sees me. The very last thing I would want is him to have his Pacific War flashbacks and come charging at me with a captured Katana, in nothing but his birthday suit and camouflage paint while screaming 'BONZAI!' at me."_

_With surprising speed, Alexandria threw her hands up to cover her mouth. Her eyes were wide, her body coursing with suppressed laughter at the rather cruel comment made by John. Grinning widely and deciding he had missed the laughter from the woman, he reached out and gripped her hands. He pulled them away to allow the explosion of sweet laughter erupt from her._

"_Y-you're terrible… absolutely terrible, John. That wasn't funny…. Not in the slightest" She said as she continued to laugh at the comment._

_John allowed a light laughter to escape as well. It wasn't long before Alexandria to lull her head forward, resting it into his peck. Still she was laughing, albeit muffled. Slowly it vanished once more, leaving the room deafeningly silent. It wasn't long after that that Alexandria pulled her slowly up. She was still smiling as she looked up to him._

"_I know what this is, you know. You want me to go to Dresden… You want me to see them." She spoke her, her words airy, her expression one of understanding. Noticing the flash of guilt cross his expression, she smiled even wider, adding, "John, you are plain as day like always… You want me to make my rounds."_

_Well... He wouldn't quite put it that way, but yes, He was growing weary with the precarious position as Alexandria's vicarious voice to Adam Ackerson, who was growing more and more desperate to see his wife. This had to stop. He needed to see her. The deception was beginning to become too much. Even for a man such as himself. _

"_Yes… Yes I think you should go to Dresden." He stated, his voice dropping an octave. "Adam needs to see you, Amala needs to see you; and you need to tell him everything; why you're doing this. I'm not asking you to have him come back with us. I'm not asking you to be in their lives. I just think he deserves some answers. I love you, 'dria, but it's getting hard to keep him at bay."_

_Alexandria did not reply. Bothered by his words, she laid down. This had become a classic tactic for her. She would metaphorically bury her head at the first sign of trouble. Sighing to himself, he reached down and pulled the blankets over her before he joined her, his hand waving over the lamp light to disable to the light amplification. _

"_I can't keep this up, 'Dria" He murmured as he buried himself into the pillow. "I just can't… not for much longer."_

_Silence, then._

"_I know, perhaps soon."_

_Elated inwardly at the ghost of agreement offered by the woman, John decided not to push the subject. Instead he paid attention the bed moving slightly as Alexandria's wait shuffled closer to him. He felt a hand in the darkness reach out to grab his, resting his arm around her waist. His head touching against the back of Alexandria`s head now, he closed his eyes._

….

"_Boss?"_

Looking up from a paperback copy of _The Catcher and the Rye_, generously donated to him by the German ambassador. Hoch found Isabella stepping into his room, her pistol swinging lowly as she took a seat on the edge of his bed and what appeared to have been a paper newspaper in her hands. Something John hadn't seen since the mid-sixties; Quaint.

It had been chaos the past five or so hours. He hadn't been in any condition to take individual interviews. Ultimately he chose to leave the dinner in his honour early to avoid the endless questioning. He was not in the mood and he wasn't about to reveal anything to the North Americans until they pulled their heads out of their asses and got around to signing business contracts with his company.

No, he would instead head back to the embassy; rest for the night, clean up from his coke fuelled high and prepare for the reception being held in the Ritz Carlton for the dignitaries. There he would be more receptive to being harassed. At least there he should shove his shit in the faces of the sons of bitches that had derailed his earlier efforts. Yes, the reception would be glorious indeed.

"Ochoa, how can I be of service?" He spoke finally, returning to the novel for a few brief seconds until the newspaper was thrown into his lap haphazardly. Idly he lifted the paper to examine it.

"_German Industrialist's Sweeping Televised Revolution._" Isabella said, her words that of the newspaper headline. "Congratulations, top story on all major news networks from the arctic circle to the Caribbean sea. You have broken into North America's collective consciousness."

Reading the blaring headlines on the late edition of the Times, John grinned slightly. He really should have done this when he first arrived to the states all those years ago. Still he chose to remain silent and did not say anything until he slowly picked through the newspaper, stopping to read an article about a murder in the Delaware region that was shoved to page three. John shrugged his shoulders slightly and looked up to Ochoa.

"I suppose I shall have to dodge the paparazzi now; it will make your job somewhat more difficult." He said as he exhaled his cigarette. Shooting her a look as she finally pulled the ties in her hair out, he added. "So, have you checked in on your parents?"

Running her hand through her great length of wavy, near black hair, the woman slowly nodded; there was a mild grin on her face. The sort of look he always found her getting whenever she had some sort of contact with her family.

"Yeah, I just got off the phone with them." She admitted as Hoch took a seat next to her. "I might just wander their way while we're here. You can come if you like, boss. You're always welcomed there."

Offering Ochoa one of his cigarettes, he lit it as soon as she placed it into her lips.

"I might just take you up on the offer." He turned as he closed the ancient lighter. "You keep complaining about not getting to eat the slop they fed you for eighteen years. I might as well see how it tastes firsthand."

"I think they can arrange it, Boss. They love you, you know?" She said, earning his bosses look of bemusement. "After everything that happened… the blacklisting; you took me in, taught me a hell of a lot and rebuilt my confidence apparently." With a laugh and a shake of her head, she added. "I keep getting from my Mom _'Oh Isabella, you should wear a dress to work more often and get Herr Hoch to marry you. He'll treat you well!'_ Or my Father would always add. _'Imagine all the blonde children! That'll be a first!'_ _Meirda_… annoying as hell, boss. You have no idea."

For the first time in what felt like years, Joachim broke down into laughter. He was quickly joined by Isabella, who was red in the face as she realized what she was admitting to the older man. Yes… John knew exactly Isabella's problems. He had the exact same sort of parents. Regardless of the strange insistence that parents had to get that involved with their children's lives the two of them continued to laugh.

Slowly it died down and once more his thoughts returned to a friend long since gone, who, in all likelihood would have encouraged this dialog even further. He glanced over to Ochoa briefly to find that she was still red in her face; her finger's idly toyed with her gun holster. Stubbing his cigarette out on the bed frame, silently, he rested his arm on her shoulder, making the woman freeze up slightly, before relaxing once more.

"Really now…" He finally said, his voice remaining amused. "They must have had an aneurysm when you told them you live in my home."

Ochoa laughed nervously. Her fingers laced together.

"Boss... Remember when I first started working for you?" She started up.

John raised his eyebrow as he pulled his arm off the bodyguard and head of security. With that liberation, Ochoa stood up and slowly started to pace, one hand gripping the butt of her .45 USP Match, the other hand gripped the butt of her cigarette she was inhaling. She looked conflicted, li8ke she had something say but really didn't want to speak of it. Loyalty; It was a weakness of hers. Especially when it involved revealing things she considered personal.

After a long moment and an utterance of 'Fuck it' under her breath, she killed the cigarette and Isabella turned back to face him.

"I never understood why you told me to do so… but you told me to report any strange behaviour from Galina?" The pilot reminded the industrialist. " Well… this is the cleanest I've spoken to you since we left Germany and hit stateside…. Anyways, she's… hysterical… about you and... Well… you know… your grief over 'dria."

John blinked.

"_Hysterical?_" He repeated. To which the woman nodded.

"I don't know, boss." She said, explaining herself. "She's not just concerned about you… she's _obsessed_ about you. Like your condition is her responsibility and that your state is all her own fault. She even tried to convince me to take you home. She just sort of went ballistic."

John exhaled slowly, He certainly hadn't expected this.

"Oh_, Jesus Christ_, I'm going to check in on her. You did the right thing telling me." He muttered as he stormed toward the bedroom door and out to the hall, leaving his pilot and guard confused.

"Sir… is there something to be worried about?" Isabella asked, her voice somewhat alarmed by his sudden jolt of energy, considering he was coming down from a three day cocaine binge.

John did not reply to the question inquired. He simply pulled on his jacket and left Ochoa in his room, scratching her head.

**….**

* * *

…

"_That's right, Dan, With John Hoch's return to the embassy, it marks the end of his tumultuous day in front of the Country. He does not have anything scheduled until Friday evening when the Friendship Gala at the Ritz Carlton here in Washington D.C is underway. He is expected to face many Politicians in this country and across the Union, right up to the Vice President according to White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry…"_

"So let me get this straight. You want to crash an evening at the Ritz Carlton in D.C and try to get a face to face meeting with John Hoch?"

Turning away from the wide eyed Worth Carter, House and Wilson glanced to each other and simply nodded. Yes, that was the gist of the plan. It would not be particularly difficult to do. Wilson just had to make a phone call to the boss. Cuddy, who would probably love the chance to have one of her own people in a face to face with a potential investor, would jump at the opportunity being presented -Even if House would be Wilson's plus one.

"I think Jamie and I should go as well."

House glanced up from the TV screen and focused on the source of the words. It had been the boy, Landon, sitting on his couch with both Jamie leaning against him and her Father on her other side. His expression apparently permanently soured. House turned away, allowing Wilson to field this one. He grabbed the remote and flipped idly through the channels.

Worth took a seat on the armrest of the couch, his hand falling onto his boy's shoulder.

"Jamie's in no condition to make any journeys' on this short notice, son." He spoke to his son in a carefully worded statement. The boy did not like the answer, before he could say something, Wilson stepped in.

"If there is one journey she needs to go on, then it's to Princeton where she should travel to, where she can be treated, not to a Gala." Wilson added like the softy wimp that he was. "Moving her around a lot will disrupt treatment and increase stress reactions."

Though House groaned at Wilson's Mister Roger behaviour, it seemed to have worked somewhat.

"Then I should go at least." The boy spoke again, glancing to the girl resting some comfortably next to him. "If I can help explain it then perhaps they would listen more closely to whatever you have on your mind."

"You can't, you're emotional. Men like Hoch aren't swayed by emotion."

The Gathering went silent at House's statement. His hands gripping the handle of his cane, House looked up to meet everyone's stare. Even the Sullivan girl had been surprised, surprised enough to open her eyes at least. House directed his eyes to the hard stare of the teenage boy with the stupid name.

"This may come to you as a surprise, but not everyone is moved by the plight of a sick girl and her somewhat handsome and terribly misfortunate boyfriend. Hoch is clearly moved by _reason_, not pity." House spoke again to the defiant looking Carter boy. "It's better we only go. There is only one way to appeal to him, and it's convincing him that the girl is a poster child to his campaign. A pretty, deathly ill, southern belle, whose Daddy is a Minister? It plays on all the advertising he needs to break into this marketplace. Wilson and I play it right and he'll be salivating at the chance to exploit her."

"Exploit Jamie; you make it sound like you're turning her out." Jamie's father nearly growled at the Doctor. "I'm not comfortable with those words. I'm not comfortable with having her go to these… people… They're bad people."

House was spared a witty comeback as Wilson stepped in front of him, keeping the Reverends focus directed at the much kinder oncologist.

"He's right Reverend. With all due respect, you better get comfortable with it." Wilson spoke softly. "If this chance works, you can expect to see your daughter on all the advertisement for Daedalus Industries in North America for the next ten years; besides, who cares about the past when it's your daughter's health we're talking about. If there is a chance, a real chance, then we have to take it… Even if the chance is offered by a questionable man like Hoch."

Reverend Sullivan looked close to exploding. A poster girl for a corporation founded by spawn of Nazis probably wasn't what he considered a

"Daddy… I want this. I want this chance."

Any further fight vanished in the curmudgeon reverend. For the first time in a while, the girl had spoken. High on a morphine drip, but lucid enough to make sense.

"It's not just for me, it's for everyone. " Jamie pressed on, fighting the slur in her voice. "This man has spoken a lot of words, and he may have a checkered past, but he's trying to be a better man by doing this. If… he needs a face on his fixes, then I…I want to help… it will speed things up for him in the end. It will save lives. We need to help him get a chance to help all of us…. Right?"

Her focus turned to House, who nodded gravely.

"Listen to her." House urged the Father on before turning back to Worth Carter, adding. "Meanwhile, I think it might be time you take us suit shopping. The last thing we would want to do is show up at a black tie affair underdressed."

**…..**

* * *

**…..**

He was outside of Galina's room when he heard it.

"_-He's a grown up, he can look after himself, Galina. Either make him come home, or leave him here and let him make an ass out of himself. It's what he's best at doing."_

John could not help himself at the low, angry tone belonging to a younger man he hadn't spoken to in a very long time. It left the industrialist grinning slightly in spite of the barely concealed malice hidden in his insults. So… Galina had brought out the big guns. Of course she did. John loved her to death, but she was sensitive to a fault.

"John is tearing his soul apart and you want me to cut my losses, Jochen? This isn't the Heer, this is family; and John needs us. John needs all of us, even if you and he don't think so. Erika, Haeva surely you agree. You saw him at the funeral. You know that Alexandria was more to him than just a friend. I'm not crazy."

There was a brief pause.

"_I understand where you are coming from, but what is there to do for him? Convince him to take time off, get him some psychological help?"_ Erika spoke up. Her voice sounded unbelievably nervous._ "John isn't like us. We have our little faults, we're not perfect, but John is… well… God help me, I think he's a sociopath. It's the only explanation that fits all of his qualities."_

John arched his brow. His sister thought he was a sociopath? This was interesting. Erika was a strange case. Matronly as she hit her adult years, she was brutally blunt about her views and opinions. She held nothing back. It was so bad that Father had started nicknaming her '_Lene_,' after one of his old friends. Mother always wondered if the egg they had fertilized was once one of this Lene Langer.

"A sociopath doesn't suffer grief like this, Erika." Galina shot back to her elder human sister. "Even if it's true and he is indeed a sociopath, would you not try to help him control that state?"

"_A sociopath might not feel grief, but self-pity would fit his behaviour."_ Erika said, unbothered by her baby sister's clear annoyance. _"If what you say is true and he lost a woman he 'loved', then perhaps the grief stems from a delusional belief that the woman should have been his, when she wasn't. She wasn't in love with him. If she was, why would she have a child with another man, why would she parade Adam Ackerson around like a couple in love, before she got sick?"_

John frowned slightly as he leaned in the doorway, his arms crossing together.

"_Please, Psych 101 isn't going to help us."_ Haeva announced her voice high and condescending to her human sister. _"I'm with you Galina, John needs us all. You two seem to think that money has changed him. It hasn't… Mother and Father have spent the past two years worrying about him. This was bound to happen the moment he said he would take care of that woman. Tending to a terminally ill case… this was bound to occur. Especially if your hypothesis is correct and John was in love with a married woman. The thing is, we need to go about this delicately. "_

Haeva Hoch. She was a carbon copy of Mother without all of the blood on her hands. She was both extremely sociable, and hid a steel trap mind, one that could be applied to just about anything. In their parent's old age, she had become sort of the spokeswoman to the family. She had dedicated her life to helping them out in whatever capacity they needed her in. She was the voice of the Hoch's whenever John had been too busy to do so. With his duties to 'Dria stacking up, it became more so. He had even hired her to be his voice at board and company meetings and gatherings while he took care of Latha.

"_I agree. Money isn't what changed him. His work is noble; it will be used to get Rannoch back before long."_ Jochen agreed, thinking about John's work. _"Running off to fight for a bunch of old Nazis was what changed him. Reinhardt is a criminal, pure and simple, a terrorist if I want to get technical. Gerald would be rolling in his grave, his brother, a fanatic. Father had an excuse, what was Reinhardt's?"_

There was an awkward pause at the mention of their long deceased sibling, twenty odd years after his demise in the Second Reich-Soviet War. John decided enough was enough.

"My excuse was simple curiosity; there was nothing else to it. What better way to understand Father then to join up with his old friends..." John spoke up, answering Jochen's charge. With a grin he added. "My God, you would not believe how much they hate him. Dad definitely knows how to make enemies. I spent the first year being punished for Dad's actions."

He paused as the images looked at the source of his voice.

"Tattling on me, Galina?" He teased. "What are you, five again?"

Galina jumped in place and turned back to watch as John stepped into the feed to join the rest of his siblings in the conversation that was about him. Smiling to his two absent sisters, he did not look over to meet Jochen's weary stare. The two of them hadn't spoken since at least '89. Longer if they factored out the fact that it had been an accidental step into the holographic communicator while Mother and Father were wishing Jochen a season greeting.

John turned away to incline his head slightly to the two holographic projections of his sisters before wrapping his arm around Galina's shoulder. As his expression formed a grin, Galina pushed his arm off him and took a step back; she was shaking as she looked up at her brother. She looked close to a collapse.

"Somebody has to be a voice of reason John; you're sick! You aren't in any condition to be here. You lost someone you loved." Galina begged, her eyes growing wide, "You need to go home. Throwing yourself into your work and snorting half of Bolivia into your nose isn't going to erase what has happened. You've made your case, you've smashed the silence! The Union has exploded. You won this round, John! Don't you get it! You've won! Now it's time to go home and let them call you!"

The holographs all shared a look. Like John it had finally clicked what their early morning meeting had stemmed from her Hyperactive Comprehension Syndrome, it was an anxiety disorder that appeared in quarians at young age, notably through genetics or by Element Zero exposure. It was a strange combination of two ugly human brain diseases. High function afflicted like Galina suffered obsessive compulsive disorders while low function patients ended up with a severe Autism-like state. Like he said before, it was ugly...

"I'm not done here. I need you to understand that, Galina. I will be home in a few days. Until then, I shall remain here. I have much work to do still." He spoke, bemused by the anger coursing from Galina. "Besides, I was under the impression that I was a sociopath; I should not be bothered by the mess… Why, hello there Erika, how are the kids?"

Erika's face went hot as she ducked away from her older brother's hard stare. Slowly, he allowed her a hint of a smile before turning away from his sister; he offered a nod to Haeva before turning to face his brother finally.

Jochen Hoch or Junior as Dad referred to him. He was a chip off the old block according to Mother. Father was exactly the same sort of militarist that his son would eventually become. Though in Dad's case, a trip to visit the Gestapo cleaned that desire for war real good.

To say John and Jochen had a long, complicated history was an understatement. They had respected each other as men, but that was about it. Jochen had followed his Father and his elder brother, Gerald's career path in the military. The thing was, everyone had assumed that John was his Father's son, through and through. It was in fact Jochen who was much more like his namesake then John ever was. He was an unthinking idiot, who signed away his future to join the military shortly after Gerald's death at the hands of the Soviets in the Second Reich-Soviet War. Like his Father before him, he had been motivated by revenge. Motivated enough to throw away all of his education in preference to fighting for a brother dead.

Sure, John had spent some time with private military contractors who were of Nazi origin, but was Jochen any better? Much of the National Socialist leadership installed into the Wehrmacht by the Nazis had survived. Jochen was trained by officers who were apart of the old Nazi war machine, in quite a few cases, extremely loyal to the cause.

So what made him any better than John? That he fought for a country? A country that still hadn't made proper amends for the government they allowed to run wild? His hands were nowhere near as clean as he deluded himself into believing. At least John could admit that his time spent with the old guard was morally bankrupt moment… well… seven years.

"Oberst, I trust you're doing well." John addressed his younger brother. "Shouldn't you be protecting the Reich and the Federation from the Soviet threat?"

Jochen narrowed his eyes. He did not reply. Shaking his head, John turned back to Galina, who looked close to tears. He reached out and squeezed her hand, forcing her to flinch slightly.

"Thank you for your concern, Galina, but I'm fine, everything is fine. I never loved her, she never loved me. She was a friend, a good friend" He informed her, trying not to look like he was revealing too much. "I'm going to be fine. If you wish to go home, I will not stop you. I am staying here though. I'm going to have a nap and the rest of you ought to be in bed… or in your case, Jochen, keeping the country safe from the non-existent Soviet threat…"

Ignoring Jochen's sudden glowering, silently John stepped out of the feed, it wasn't long until he was followed by his sister, who reached out and grabbed his arm. Her eyes were filled with tears that threaten to fall. It was a rarity to witness from her. John offered Galina a slight smile as dried her eyes with his sleeve. As soon as she dropped it, her hand ran through her hair. From here he could see her quivering slightly.

"Are you alright?" He inquired. "I heard from reliable sources you have spent the past day or so having panic attacks."

There was a faint expression of concern that crossed her expression. Her wall built by years of therapy and education to keep her mind focused had nearly cracked. She shot him a very weak smile as she slowly nodded her head.

"Bella…" She breathed, correctly guessing the source of his information. "No… I'll be fine. I- I think I need to take my medication and head to bed myself. B-big day tomorrow night, right?"

John nodded. Still somewhat concerned that her condition was flaring up.

"Yes it is… and please… do not worry… No more cocaine to make things interesting." John assured her. "I can't make any promises about drinking."

He meant his promise. If her condition was acting up, then the last thing he wanted to do was make her that much more volatile for her. The drugs were merely an indulgence. Something he did casually, it made him shove certain thoughts to the back of his mind while he conducted his business. Regardless of his justifications, John was glad to see his sister smiling, relieved.

"Thank you." She whispered.

Nodding with as confident smile as he could produce, John turned to leave the bedroom. He was just outside of the doorframe when he paused. Sighing, he turned back to face his sister once more, who hadn't move out of her place. Her head however was lowered, she appeared deep in thought.

"Galina?"

Galina turned back to look at her Brother standing there. His smile was gone. He swallowed the dry lump ion his throat ad roiled his eyes up to the ceiling for a brief moment before turning back to Galina, who had taking the opportunity to rejoin him. Her hands reached out to grip his carefully. Huffing, a flash of a mournful smile crossed his expression as he finally turned his attention back to her.

"My best friend is dead, my only friend is dead; the only person outside my family to challenge me is dead." He finally spoke.

Galina's eyes widened. It was expected, considering John had spent the past two weeks since her demise, simply not addressing the death to anyone. He could feel her hands gripping his tighter still, as though it was wordlessly pressing him for more. Exhaling unsteadily, he leaned into kiss Galina's forehead. He pulled back for a brief moment to offer her a reassuring smile.

"I know you mean well, but I just cannot find the words to discuss it. It just hasn't settled in. I don't think it will ever quite settle in… that she's gone. But she is… and I made her many promises I swore to keep before she passed on. For now I have work to do for her…"

John paused for a brief moment.

"Once I get a handle on it… I think I would like to confide with you then… deal?"

Galina's answer came to him in the form of a sudden, near death grip hug.

**….**

* * *

**….**

**Thanks for reading. Also, I realize that some might be offended by the portrayal of religion and all that as straw man stuff. As I said in the very first chapter. This is practice for my main series. I want to improve it. Some of the lines in the last chapter were offensive, but I am trying not to make this theism vs. science debate. My goal is to have both sides ignorant at first. Hoch and the religious community. Eventually respect will be slowly crafted, then lost, then gained, then lost etc. etc… lol. Please bear with me in this story and know that just because I write something, doesn't mean I stand behind it wholeheartedly.**


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